(iimglial) Mtn of fetters 

EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY 



SWIFT 



BY 



LESLIE STEPHEN 




NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1882 



•St 



ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS. 

Edited by John Morley. 



Johnson Leslie Stephen. 

Gibbon J. C. Morison. 

Scott R. H. Hutton. 

Shelley J. A. Symonds. 

Hume T. H. Huxley. 

Goldsmith William Black. 

Defoe William Minto. 

Burns J. C. Shairp. 

Spenser R. W. Church. 

Thackeray Anthony Trollope. 

Burke John Morley. 

Milton Mark Pattison. 

Hawthorne Henry James, Jr. 

Southey E. Dowden. 

Swift 



Chaucer A. W. Ward. 

Bunyan J. A. Froude. 

Cowper Goldwin Smith. 

Pope Leslie Stephen. 

Byron John Nichol. 

Locke Thomas Fowler. 

Wordsworth F. Myers. 

Dryden G. Saintsbury. 

Landor Sidney Colvin. 

De Quincey David Masson. 

Lamb Alfred Ainger. 

Bentley R. C. Jebb. 

Dickens A. W. Ward. 

Gray E. W. Gosse. 

Leslie Stephen. 



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48 65 55 

JUL 2 1942 



PEEFACE. 

The chief materials for a life of Swift are to be found in 
his writings and correspondence. The best edition is the 
second of the two edited by Scott (1814 and 1824). 

In 1751 Lord Orrery published Remarks upon the Life 
and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Sivift. Orrery, born 17 07, 
had known Swift from about 1732. His remarks give 
the views of a person of quality of more ambition than 
capacity, and more anxious to exhibit his own taste than 
to give full or accurate information. 

In 1754 Dr. Delany published Observations upon Lord 
Orrery's Remarks, intended to vindicate Swift against 
some of Orrery's severe judgments. Delany, born about 
1685, became intimate with Swift soon after the Dean's 
final settlement in Ireland. He was then one of the au- 
thorities of Trinity College, Dublin. He is the best con- 
temporary authority, so far as he goes. 

In 1756 Deane Swift, grandson of Swift's uncle, God- 
win, and son-in-law to Swift's cousin and faithful guar- 
dian, Mrs. White way, published an Essay upon the Life, 
Writings, and Character of Dr. Jonathan Swift, in which 
he attacks both his predecessors. Deane Swift, born 
about 1708, had seen little or nothing of his cousin till 
the year 1738, when the Dean's faculties were decaying. 



vi PREFACE. 

His book is foolish and discursive. Deane Swift's son, 
Theophilus, communicated a good deal of doubtful matter 
to Scott, on the authority of family tradition. 

In 1765 Hawkesworth, who had no personal knowl- 
edge, prefixed a life of Swift to an edition of the works 
which adds nothing to our information. In 1781 John- 
son, when publishing a very perfunctory life of Swift as 
one of the poets, excused its shortcomings on the ground 
of having already communicated his thoughts to Hawkes- 
worth. The life is not only meagre but injured by one 
of Johnson's strong prejudices. 

In 1785 Thomas Sheridan produced a pompous and 
dull life of Swift. He was the son of Swift's most inti- 
mate companion during the whole period subsequent to 
the final settlement in Ireland. The elder Sheridan, how- 
ever, died in 1738 ; and the younger, born in 1721, was 
still a boy when Swift was becoming imbecile. 

Contemporary writers, except Delany, have thus little 
authority; and a number of more or less palpably ficti- 
tious anecdotes accumulated round their hero. Scott's 
life, originally published in 1814, is defective in point of 
accuracy. Scott did not investigate the evidence minute- 
ly, and liked a good story too well to be very particular 
about its authenticity. The book, however, shows his 
strong sense and genial appreciation of character ; and re- 
mains, till this day, by far the best account of Swift's 
career. 

A life which supplies Scott's defects in great measure 
was given by William Monck Mason, in 1819, in his His- 
tory and Antiquities of the Church of St. Patrick. Monck 
Mason was an indiscriminate admirer, and has a provok- 
ing method of expanding undigested information into 
monstrous notes, after the precedent of Bayle. But he 



PREFACE. vii 

examined facts with the utmost care, and every biographer 
must respect his authority. 

In 1875 Mr. Forster published the first instalment of a 
Life of Swift. This book, which contains the results of 
patient and thorough inquiry, was unfortunately inter- 
rupted by Mr. Forster's death, and ends at the beginning 
of 1711. A complete Life by Mr. Henry Craik is an- 
nounced as about to appear. 

Besides these books, I ought to mention an Essay upon 
the Earlier Part of the Life of Swift, by the Rev. John 
Barrett, B.D. and Yice-Provost of Trinity College, Dublin 
(London, 1808); and The Closing Years of Dean Swiff s 
Life, by W. R. Wilde, M.R.I. A., F.R.C.S. (Dublin, 1849). 
This last is a very interesting study of the medical aspects 
of Swift's life. An essay by Dr. Bucknill, in Brain for 
January, 1882, is a remarkable contribution to the same 
subject. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. PAGE 

Early Years 1 

CHAPTER II. 
Moor Park and Kilroot 12 

CHAPTER III. 
Early Writings 32 

CHAPTER IV. 
Laracor and London 51 

CHAPTER V. 
The Harley Administration 77 

CHAPTER VI. 

Stella and Vanessa 117 

CHAPTER VII. 
Wood's Halfpence 145 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Gulliver's Travels 166 

CHAPTER IX. 
Decline 183 



SWIFT. 

CHAPTER I. 

EARLY YEARS. 

Jonathan Swift, the famous Dean of St. Patrick's, was 
the descendant of an old Yorkshire family. One branch 
had migrated southwards, and in the time of Charles I. 
Thomas Swift, Jonathan's grandfather, was Vicar of 
Goodrich, near Ross, in Herefordshire, a fact commemo- 
rated by the sweetest singer of Queen Anne's reign in the 
remarkable lines : 

"Jonathan Swift 
Had the gift 
By fatherige, motherige, 
And by brotherige, 
To come from Gotheridge." 

Thomas Swift married Elizabeth Dryden, niece of Sir 
Erasmus, the grandfather of the poet Dryden. By her 
he became the father of ten sons and four daughters. In 
the great rebellion he distinguished himself by a loyalty 
which was the cause of obvious complacency to his de- 
scendant. On one occasion he came to the governor of a 
town held for the King, and being asked what he could 
do for his Majesty, laid down his coat as an offering. 
The governor remarked that his coat was worth little. 



2 SWIFT. [chap. 

"Then," said Swift, "take my waistcoat." The waist- 
coat was lined with three hundred broad pieces — a hand- 
some offering from a poor and plundered clergyman. On 
another occasion he armed a ford, through which rebel 
cavalry were to pass, by certain pieces of iron with four 
spikes, so contrived that one spike must always be upper- 
most {caltrops, in short). Two hundred of the enemy 
were destroyed by this stratagem. The success of the 
rebels naturally led to the ruin of this Cavalier clergyman ; 
and the record of his calamities forms a conspicuous arti- 
cle in Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy. He died in 
1658, before the advent of the better times in which he 
might have been rewarded for his loyal services. His 
numerous family had to struggle for a living. The eldest 
son, Godwin Swift, was a barrister of Gray's Inn at the 
time of the Restoration : he was married four times, and 
three times to women of fortune ; his first wife had been 
related to the Ormond family ; and this connexion in- 
duced him to seek his fortune in Ireland — a kingdom 
which at that time suffered, amongst other less endurable 
grievances, from a deficient supply of lawyers. 1 Godwin 
Swift was made Attorney-General in the palatinate of 
Tipperary by the Duke of Ormond. He prospered in his 
profession, in the subtle parts of which, says his nephew, 
he was " perhaps a little too dexterous ;" and he engaged 
in various speculations, having at one time what was then 
the very large income of 3000/. a year. Four brothers 
accompanied this successful Godwin, and shared to some 
extent in his prosperity. In January, 1666, one of these, 
Jonathan, married to Abigail Erick, of Leicester, was ap- 
pointed to the stewardship of the King's Inns, Dublin, 
partly in consideration of the loyalty and suffering of 
1 Deane Swift, p. 1 5. 



l] EARLY YEARS. 3 

his family. Some fifteen months later, in April, 1667, he 
died, leaving his widow with an infant daughter, and seven 
months after her husband's death, November 30, 1667, she 
gave birth to Jonathan, the younger, at 7 Hoey's Court, 
Dublin. 

The Dean " hath often been heard to say " (I quote his 
fragment of autobiography) "that he felt the consequences 
of that (his parents') marriage, not only through the whole 
course of his education, but during the greater part of his 
life." This quaint assumption that a man's parentage is 
a kind of removable accident to which may be attributed 
a limited part of his subsequent career, betrays a charac- 
teristic sentiment. Swift cherished a vague resentment 
against the fates which had mixed bitter ingredients in 
his lot. He felt the place as well as the circumstances of 
his birth to be a grievance. It gave a plausibility to the 
offensive imputation that he was of Irish blood. " I hap- 
pened," he said, with a bitterness born of later sufferings, 
" by a perfect accident to be born here, and thus I am a 
Teague, or an Irishman, or what people please." Else- 
where he claims England as properly his own country ; 
" although I happened to be dropped here, and was a year 
old before I left it (Ireland), and to my sorrow did not die 
before I came back to it." His infancy brought fresh griev- 
ances. He was, it seems, a precocious and delicate child, 
and his nurse became so much attached to him, that having 
to return to her native Whitehaven, she kidnapped the year- 
old infant out of pure affection. When his mother knew 
her loss she was afraid to hazard a return voyage until 
the child was stronger ; and he thus remained nearly three 
years at Whitehaven, where the nurse took such care of 
his education that he could read any chapter in the Bible 
before he was three years old. His return must have been 



4 SWIFT. [chap. 

speedily followed by his mother's departure for her native 
Leicester. Her sole dependence, it seems, was an annuity 
of 20/. a year, which had been bought for her by her 
husband upon their marriage. Some of the Swift family 
seem also to have helped her; but, for reasons not now 
discoverable, she found Leicester preferable to Dublin, 
even at the price of parting from the little Jonathan. 
Godwin took him off her hands and sent him to Kil- 
kenny School at the age of six, and from that early 
period the child had to grow up as virtually an orphan. 
His mother through several years to come can have been 
little more than a name to him. Kilkenny School, called 
the " Eton of Ireland," enjoyed a high reputation. Two 
of Swift's most famous contemporaries were educated 
there. Congreve, two years his junior, w r as one of his 
schoolfellows, and a warm friendship remained when both 
had become famous. Fourteen years after Swift had left 
the school it w r as entered by George Berkeley, destined to 
win a fame of the purest and highest kind, and to come 
into a strange relationship to Swift. It w T ould be vain to 
ask what credit may be claimed by Kilkenny School for 
thus " producing " (it is the word used on such occasions) 
the greatest satirist, the most brilliant writer of comedies, 
and the subtlest metaphysician in the English language. 
Our knowledge of Swift's experiences at this period is 
almost confined to a single anecdote. "I remember," he 
says incidentally in a letter to Lord Bolingbroke, " when I 
was a little boy, I felt a great fish at the end of my line, 
which I drew up almost on the ground ; but it dropped in, 
and the disappointment vexes me to this very day, and I 
believe it was the type of all my future disappointments." ' 

1 Readers may remember a clever adaptation of this incident in 
Lord Lytton's My Novel 



L] EARLY YEARS. 5 

Swift, indeed, was still in the schoolboy stage, according 
to modern ideas, when he was entered at Trinity College, 
Dublin, on the same day, April 24, 1682, with a cousin, 
Thomas Swift. Swift clearly found Dublin uncongenial ; 
though there is still a wide margin for uncertainty as to 
precise facts. His own account gives a short summary 
of his academic history: 

"By the ill-treatment of his nearest relations" (he says) 
" he was so discouraged and sunk in his spirits that he 
too much neglected his academic studies, for some parts 
of which he had no great relish by nature, and turned him- 
self to reading history and poetry, so that when the time 
came for taking his degree of Bachelor of Arts, although 
he had lived with great regularity and due observance of 
the statutes, he was stopped of his degree for dulness and 
insufficiency ; and at last hardly admitted in a manner little 
to his credit, which is called in that college speciali gratia." 
In a report of one of the college examinations, discovered 
by Mr. Forster, he receives a bene for his Greek and Latin, 
a male for his " philosophy," and a negligenter for his the- 
ology. The " philosophy " was still based upon the old 
scholasticism, and proficiency was tested by skill in the arts 
of syllogistic argumentation. Sheridan, son of Swift's in- 
timate friend, was a student at Dublin shortly before the 
Dean's loss of intellectual power ; the old gentleman would 
naturally talk to the lad about his university recollections; 
and, according to his hearer, remembered with singular ac- 
curacy the questions upon which he had disputed, and re- 
peated the arguments which had been used, " in syllogistic 
form." Swift at the same time declared, if the report be 
accurate, that he never had the patience to read the pages 
of Smiglecius, Burgersdicius, and the other old-fashioned 
logical treatises. When told that they taught the art of 



6 SWIFT. [chap. 

reasoning, he declared that he could reason very well 
without it. He acted upon this principle in his exer- 
cises, and left the Proctor to reduce his argument to the 
proper form. In this there is probably a substratum of 
truth. Swift can hardly be credited, as Berkeley might 
have been, with a precocious perception of the weakness 
of the accepted system. When young gentlemen are 
plucked for their degree, it is not generally because they 
are in advance of their age. But the aversion to meta- 
physics was characteristic of Swift through life. Like 
many other people who have no turn for such specula- 
tions, he felt for them a contempt which may perhaps 
be not the less justified because it does not arise from 
familiarity. The bent of his mind was already sufficiently 
marked to make him revolt against the kind of mental 
food which was most in favour at Dublin; though he 
seems to have obtained a fair knowledge of the classics. 

Swift cherished through life a resentment against most 
of his relations. His uncle Godwin had undertaken his 
education, and had sent him, as we see, to the best places 
of education in Ireland. If the supplies became scanty, it 
must be admitted that poor Godwin had a sufficient ex- 
cuse. Each of his four wives had brought him a family 
— the last leaving him seven sons ; his fortunes had been 
dissipated, chiefly, it seems, by means of a speculation in 
iron-works ; and the poor man himself seems to have been 
failing, for he "fell into a lethargy" in 1688, surviving 
some five years, like his famous nephew, in a state of im- 
becility. Decay of mind and fortune coinciding with the 
demands of a rising family might certainly be some apolo- 
gy for the neglect of one amongst many nephews. Swift 
did not consider it sufficient. "Was it not your uncle 
Godwin," he was asked, " who educated you !" " Yes," 



i.] EARLY YEARS. 1 

said Swift, after a pause ; " he gave me the education of a 
dog." " Then," answered the intrepid inquirer, " you have 
not the gratitude of a dog." And perhaps that is our nat- 
ural impression. Yet we do not know enough of the facts 
to judge with confidence. Swift, whatever his faults, was 
always a warm and faithful friend ; and perhaps it is the 
most probable conjecture that Godwin Swift bestowed his 
charity coldly and in such a way as to hurt the pride of 
the recipient. In any case, it appears that Swift showed 
his resentment in a manner more natural than reasonable. 
The child is tempted to revenge himself by knocking his 
head against the rock which has broken his shins; and 
with equal wisdom the youth who fancies that the world 
is not his friend tries to get satisfaction by defying its 
laws. Till the time of his degree (February, 1686), Swift 
had been at least regular in his conduct, and if the neglect 
of his relations had discouraged his industry, it had not 
provoked him to rebellion. During the three years which 
followed he became more reckless. He was still a mere 
lad, just eighteen at the time of his degree, when he fell 
into more or less irregular courses. In rather less than 
two years he was under censure for seventy weeks. The 
offences consisted chiefly in neglect to attend chapel and 
in " town-haunting," or absence from the nightly roll-call. 
Such offences perhaps appear to be more flagrant than 
they really are in the eyes of college authorities. Twice 
he got into more serious scrapes. He was censured (March 
16, 1687), along with his cousin, Thomas Swift, and several 
others, for " notorious neglect of duties and frequenting 
6 the town.' " And on his twenty-first birthday (Nov. 30, 
1688) he 1 was punished, along with several others, for ex- 

1 Possibly this was his cousin Thomas, but the probabilities are 
clearly in favour of Jonathan. 



8 SWIFT. [chap. 

citing domestic dissensions, despising the warnings of the 
junior Dean, and insulting that official by contemptuous 
words. The offenders were suspended from their degrees, 
and inasmuch as Swift and another were the worst offend- 
ers {ad hue intolerabilius se gesserant), they were sentenced 
to ask pardon of the Dean upon their knees publicly in 
the hall. Twenty years later 1 Swift revenged himself 
upon Owen Lloyd, the junior Dean, by accusing him of 
infamous servility. For the present Swift was probably 
reckoned amongst the black sheep of the academic flock.* 
This censure came at the end of Swift's university ca- 
reer. The three last years had doubtless been years of 
discouragement and recklessness. That they were also 
years of vice in the usual sense of the word is not proved ; 
nor, from all that we know of Swift's later history, does 
it seem to be probable. There is no trace of anything 
like licentious behaviour in his whole career. It is easier 
to believe with Scott that Swift's conduct at this period 
might be fairly described in the words of Johnson when 
speaking of his own university experience: " Ah, sir, I 
was mad and violent. It was bitterness that they mistook 
for frolic. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight 
my way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded 
all power and all authority." Swift learnt another and a 
more profitable lesson in these years. It is indicated in 
an anecdote which rests upon tolerable authority. One 

1 In the Short Character of TJiomm, Earl of Wharton. 

2 It will be seen that I accept Dr. Barrett's statements, Earlier 
Part of the Life of Swift, pp. 13, 14. His arguments seem to me 
sufficiently clear and conclusive, and they are accepted by Monck 
Mason, though treated contemptuously by Mr. Forster, p. 34. On 
the other hand, I agree with Mr. Forster that Swift's complicity in 
the Terraz Eilius oration is not proved, though it is not altogether 
improbable. 



l] EARLY YEARS. 9 

day, as he was gazing in melancholy mood from his win- 
dow, his pockets at their lowest ebb, he saw a sailor star- 
ing about in the college courts. How happy should I be, 
he thought, if that man was inquiring for me with a pres- 
ent from my cousin Willoughby ! The dream came true. 
The sailor came to his rooms and produced a leather bag, 
sent by his cousin from Lisbon, with more money than 
poor Jonathan had ever possessed in his life. The sailor 
refused to take a part of it for his trouble, and Jonathan 
hastily crammed the money into his pocket, lest the man 
should repent of his generosity. From that time forward, 
he added, he became a better economist. 

The Willoughby Swift here mentioned was the eldest 
son of Godwin, and now settled in the English factory at 
Lisbon. Swift speaks warmly of his " goodness and gen- 
erosity " in a letter written to another cousin in 1694. 
Some help, too, was given by his uncle William, who was 
settled at Dublin, and whom he calls the M best of his re- 
lations." In one way or another he was able to keep his 
head above water ; and he was receiving an impression 
which grew with his growth. The misery of dependence 
was burnt into his soul. To secure independence became 
his most cherished wish; and the first condition of inde- 
pendence w 7 as a rigid practice of economy. We shall see 
hereafter how deeply this principle became rooted in his 
mind ; here I need only notice that it is the lesson which 
poverty teaches to none but men of strong character. 

A catastrophe meanwhile was approaching, which in- 
volved the fortunes of Swift along with those of nations. 
James II. had been on the throne for a year when Swift 
took his degree. At the time when Swift was ordered to 
kneel to the junior Dean, William was in England, and 
James preparing to fly from Whitehall. The revolution 



10 SWIFT. [chap. 

of 1688 meant a breaking up of the very foundations of 
political and social order in Ireland. At the end of 1688 
a stream of fugitives was pouring into England, whilst 
the English in Ireland were gathering into strong places, 
abandoning their property to the bands of insurgent 
peasants. 

Swift fled with his fellows. Any prospects which he 
may have had in Ireland were ruined with the ruin of his 
race. The loyalty of his grandfather to a king who pro- 
tected the national Church was no precedent for loyalty 
to a king who was its deadliest enemy. Swift, a Church- 
man to the backbone, never shared the leaning of many 
Anglicans to the exiled Stuarts ; and his early experience 
was a pretty strong dissuasive from Jacobitism. He took 
refuge with his mother at Leicester. Of that mother we 
hear less than we could wish ; for all that we hear suggests 
a brisk, wholesome, motherly body. She lived cheerfully 
and frugally on her pittance ; rose early, worked with her 
needle, read her book, and deemed herself to be " rich and 
happy " — on twenty pounds a year. A touch of her son's 
humour appears in the only anecdote about her. She 
came, it seems, to visit her son in Ireland shortly after he 
had taken possession of Laracor, and amused herself by 
persuading the woman with whom she lodged that Jona- 
than was not her son but her lover. Her son, though 
separated from her through the years in which filial affec- 
tion is generally nourished, loved her with the whole 
strength of his nature ; he wrote to her frequently, took 
pains to pay her visits " rarely less than once a year ;" 
and was deeply affected by her death in 1710. "I have 
now lost," he wrote in his pocket-book, " the last barrier 
between me and death. God grant I may be as well pre- 
pared for it as I confidently believe her to have been ! If 



i.] EARLY YEARS. 11 

the way to Heaven be through piety, truth, justice, and 
charity, she is there." 

The good lady had, it would seem, some little anxieties 
of the common kind about her son. She thought him in 
danger of falling in love with a certain Betty Jones, who, 
however, escaped the perils of being wife to a man of 
genius, and married an innkeeper. Some forty years 
later, Betty Jones, now Perkins, appealed to Swift to help 
her in some family difficulties, and Swift was ready to 
"sacrifice five pounds" for old acquaintance' sake. Other 
vague reports of Swift's attentions to women seem to have 
been flying about in Leicester. Swift, in noticing them, 
tells his correspondent that he values " his own entertain- 
ment beyond the obloquy of a parcel of wretched fools," 
which he " solemnly pronounces " to be a fit description of 
the inhabitants of Leicester. He had, he admits, amused 
himself with flirtation ; but he has learnt enough, " with- 
out going half a mile beyond the University," to refrain 
from thoughts of matrimony. A " cold temper " and the 
absence of any settled outlook are sufficient dissuasives. 
Another phrase in the same letter is characteristic : " A 
person of great honour in Ireland (who was pleased to 
stoop so low as to look into my mind) used to tell me that 
my mind was like a conjured spirit, that would do mis- 
chief if I did not give it employment." He allowed him- 
self these little liberties, he seems to infer, by way of dis- 
traction for his restless nature. But some more serious 
work was necessary, if he was to win the independence so 
earnestly desired, and to cease to be a burden upon his 
mother. AYhere was he to look for help ? 



CHAPTER II. 

MOOR PARK AND KILROOT. 

How was this " conjured spirit " to find occupation? 
The proverbial occupation of such beings is to cultivate 
despair by weaving ropes of sand. Swift felt himself 
strong ; but he had no task worthy of his strength : nor 
did he yet know precisely where it lay : he even fancied 
that it might be in the direction of Pindaric Odes. 
Hitherto his energy had expended itself in the question- 
able shape of revolt against constituted authority. But the 
revolt, whatever its precise nature, had issued in the rooted 
determination to achieve a genuine independence. The 
political storm which had for the time crushed the whole 
social order of Ireland into mere chaotic anarchy had left 
him an uprooted waif and stray — a loose fragment without 
any points of attachment, except the little household in 
Leicester. His mother might give him temporary shelter, 
but no permanent home. If, as is probable, he already 
looked forward to a clerical career, the Church to which 
he belonged was, for the time, hopelessly ruined, and in 
danger of being a persecuted sect. 

In this crisis a refuge was offered to him. Sir William 
Temple was connected, in more ways than one, with the 
Swifts. He was the son of Sir John Temple, Master of 
the Rolls in Ireland, who had been a friend of Godwin 
Swift. Temple himself had lived in Ireland in early days, 



chap, ii.] MOOR PARK AXD KILROOT. 13 

and had known the Swift family. His wife was in some 
way related to Swift's mother ; and he was now in a po- 
sition to help the young man. Temple is a remarkable 
figure amongst the statesmen of that generation. There 
is somethimg more modern about him than belongs to his 
century. A man of cultivated taste and cosmopolitan train- 
ing, he had the contempt of enlightened persons for the fa- 
naticisms of his times. He was not the man to suffer per- 
secution, with Baxter, for a creed, or even to lose his head, 
with Russell, for a party. Yet, if he had not the faith 
which animates enthusiasts, he sincerely held political the- 
ories — a fact sufficient to raise him above the thorough- 
going cynics of the court of the Restoration. His sense of 
honour, or the want of robustness in mind and tempera- 
ment, kept him aloof from the desperate game in which 
the politicians of the day staked their lives, and threw away 
their consciences as an incumbrance. Good fortune threw 
him into the comparatively safe line of diplomacy, for 
which his natural abilities fitted him. Good fortune, aided 
by discernment, enabled him to identify himself with the 
most respectable achievements of our foreign policy. He 
had become famous as the chief author of the Triple Alli- 
ance, and the promoter of the marriage of William and 
Mary. He had ventured far enough into the more troub- 
lous element of domestic politics to invent a highly ap- 
plauded constitutional device for smoothing the relations 
between the crown and Parliament. Like other such de- 
vices it went to pieces at the first contact with realities. 
Temple retired to cultivate his garden and write elegant 
memoirs and essays, and refused all entreaties to join again 
in the rough struggles of the day. Associates, made of 
sterner stuff, probably despised him ; but from their own, 
that is, the selfish point of view, he was perhaps entitled to 



14 SWIFT. [chap. 

laugh last. He escaped at least with unblemished honour, 
and enjoyed the cultivated retirement which statesmen so 
often profess to desire, and so seldom achieve. In private 
he had many estimable qualities. He was frank and sen- 
sitive ; he had won diplomatic triumphs by disregarding 
the pedantry of official rules; and he had an equal, though 
not an equally intelligent, contempt for the pedantry of 
the schools. His style, though often slipshod, often an- 
ticipates the pure and simple English of the Addison pe- 
riod, and delighted Charles Lamb by its delicate flavour of 
aristocratic assumption. He had the vanity of a " person 
of quality " — a lofty, dignified air, which became his flow- 
ing periwig, and showed itself in his distinguished feat- 
ures. But in youth a strong vein of romance displayed 
itself in his courtship of Lady Temple, and he seems to 
have been correspondingly worshipped by her and his 
sister, Lady Giffard. 

The personal friendship of William could not induce 
Temple to return to public life. His only son took office, 
but soon afterwards killed himself from a morbid sense of 
responsibility. Temple retired finally to Moor Park, near 
Farnham, in Surrey; and about the same time received 
Swift into his family. Long afterwards John Temple, Sir 
William's nephew, who had quarrelled w y ith Swift, gave an 
obviously spiteful account of the terms of this engagement. 
Swift, he said, was hired by Sir William to read to him 
and be his amanuensis, at the rate of 20Z. a year and his 
board; but "Sir William never favoured him w r ith his 
conversation, nor allowed him to sit down at table with 
him." The authority is bad, and we must be guided by 
rather precarious inferences in picturing this important 
period of Swift's career. The raw Irish student w r as 
probably awkward, and may have been disagreeable in 



li.] MOOR PARK AND KILROOT. 15 

some matters. Forty years later we find, from Lis cor- 
respondence with Gay and the Duchess of Queensberry, 
that his views as to the distribution of functions between 
knives and forks were lamentably unsettled; and it is 
probable that he may in his youth have been still more 
heretical as to social conventions. There were more serious 
difficulties. The difference which separated Swift from 
Temple is not easily measurable. How can we exaggerate 
the distance at which a lad, fresh from college and a re- 
mote provincial society, would look up to the distinguished 
diplomatist of sixty, who had been intimate with the two 
last kino's, and was still the confidential friend of the reio;n- 
ing king, who had been an actor in the greatest scenes, 
not only of English but of European history ; who had 
been treated with respect by the ministers of Louis XIV., 
and in whose honour bells had been rung and banquets 
set forth as he passed through the great Continental cities ? 
Temple might have spoken to him, without shocking 
proprieties, in terms which, if I may quote the proverbial 
phrase, would be offensive "from God x\lmighty to a 
black beetle." 

11 Shall I believe a spirit so divine 
Was cast in the same mould with mine ?" 

is Swift's phrase about Temple, in one of his first crude 
poems. We must not infer that circumstances which 
would now be offensive to an educated man — the seat at 
the second table, the predestined congeniality to the ladies'- 
maid of doubtful reputation — would have been equally 
offensive then. So long as dependence upon patrons was 
a regular incident of the career of a poor scholar, the cor- 
responding regulations would be taken as a matter of 
course. Swift was not necessarily more degraded by be- 
2 



16 SWIFT. [chap. 

ing a dependent of Temple's than Locke by a similar po- 
sition in Shaftesbury's family. But it is true that such a 
position must always be trying, as many a governess has 
felt in more modern days. The position of the educated 
dependent must always have had its specific annoyances. 
At this period, when the relation of patron and client was 
being rapidly modified or destroyed, the compact would 
be more than usually trying to the power of forbearance 
and mutual kindliness of the parties concerned. The rela- 
tion between Sir Roger de Coverley and the old college 
friend who became his chaplain meant good feeling on 
both sides. When poor Parson Supple became chaplain 
to Squire Western, and was liable to be sent back from 
London to Basingstoke in search of a forgotten tobacco- 
box, Supple must have parted with all self-respect. Swift 
has incidentally given his own view of the case in his 
Essay on the Fates of Clergymen, It is an application of 
one of his favourite doctrines — the advantage possessed by 
mediocrity over genius in a world so largely composed of 
fools. Eugenio, who represents Jonathan Swift, fails in 
life because as a wit and a poet he has not the art of win- 
ning patronage. Corusodes, in whom we have a partial 
likeness to Tom Swift, Jonathan's college contemporary, 
and afterwards the chaplain of Temple, succeeds by servile 
respectability. He never neglected chapel or lectures : he 
never looked into a poem : never made a jest himself, or 
laughed at the jests of others ; but he managed to insinuate 
himself into the favour of the noble family where his sis- 
ter was a waiting-woman ; shook hands with the butler, 
taught the page his catechism ; was sometimes admit- 
ted to dine at the steward's table ; was admitted to read 
prayers, at ten shillings a month ; and, by winking at his 
patron's attentions to his sister, gradually crept into better 



ii.] MOOR PARK AND K1LROOT. 17 

appointments, married a citizen's widow, and is now fast 
mounting towards the top of the ladder ecclesiastical. 

Temple was not the man to demand or reward services 
so base as those attributed to Corusodes. Nor does it 
seem that he would be wanting in the self-respect which 
prescribes due courtesy to inferiors, though it admits of a 
strict regard for the ceremonial outworks of social dignity. 
He would probably neither permit others to take liberties 
nor take them himself. If Swift's self-esteem suffered, it 
would not be that he objected to offering up the con- 
ventional incense, but that he might possibly think that, 
after all, the idol was made of rather inferior clay. Tem- 
ple, whatever his solid merits, was one of the showiest 
statesmen of the time ; but there was no man living with 
a keener eye for realities and a more piercing insight into 
shams of all kinds than this raw secretary from Ireland. 
In later life Swift frequently expressed his scorn for the 
mysteries and the "refinements" (to use his favourite 
phrase) by which the great men of the w r orld conceal the 
low passions and small wisdom actually exerted in affairs 
of state. At times he felt that Temple was not merely 
claiming the outward show of respect, but setting too high 
a value upon his real merits. So when Swift was at the 
full flood of fortune, when prime ministers and secretaries 
of state were calling him Jonathan, or listening submis- 
sively to his lectures on " whipping-day," he reverts to his 
early experience. "I often think," he says, when speak- 
ing of his own familiarity with St. John, " what a splutter 
Sir William Temple makes about being Secretary of State." 
And this is a less respectful version of a sentiment ex- 
pressed a year before : " I am thinking what a veneration 
we had for Sir W. Temple because he might have been Sec- 
retary of State at fifty, and here is a young fellow hardly 



18 SWIFT. [chap. 

thirty in that employment." In the interval there is an- 
other characteristic outburst : "I asked Mr. Secretary (St. 
John) what the devil ailed him on Sunday," and warned 
him " that I would never be treated like a schoolboy ; that 
I had felt too much of that in my life already (meaning Sir 
W. Temple) ; that I expected every great minister who 
honoured me with his acquaintance, if he heard and saw 
anything to my disadvantage, would let me know in plain 
words, and not put me in pain to guess by the change or 
coldness of his countenance and behaviour." The day af- 
ter this effusion he maintains that he was right in what 
he said : " Don't you remember how I used to be in pain 
w T hen Sir W. Temple would look cold and out of humour 
for three or four days, and I used to suspect a hundred 
reasons? I have plucked up my spirits since then; faith, 
he spoiled a fine gentleman." And yet, if Swift some- 
times thought Temple's authority oppressive, he was ready 
to admit his substantial merits. Temple, he says, in his 
rough marginalia to Burnet's History, " was a man of 
sense and virtue ;" and the impromptu utterance probably 
reflects his real feeling. 

The year after his first arrival at Temple's, Swift went 
back to Ireland by advice of physicians, who " weakly im- 
agined that his native air might be of some use to recover 
his health." It was at this period, we may note in passing, 
that Swift began to suffer from a disease which tormented 
him through life. Temple sent with him a letter of intro- 
duction to Sir Robert Southwell, Secretary of State in 
Ireland, which gives an interesting account of their pre- 
vious relations. Swift, said Temple, had lived in his 
house, read for him, written for him, and kept his small 
accounts. He knew Latin and Greek, and a little French ; 
wrote a good hand, and was honest and diligent. His 



il] MOOR PARK AND KILROOT. 19 

whole family had long been known to Temple, who would 
be glad if Southwell would give him a clerkship, or get 
him a fellowship in Trinity College. The statement of 
Swift's qualifications has now a rather comic sound. An 
applicant for a desk in a merchant's office once com- 
mended himself, it is said, by the statement that his style 
of writing combined scathing sarcasm with the wildest 
flights of humour. Swift might have had a better claim 
to a place for which such qualities were a recommendation ; 
but there is no reason, beyond the supposed agreement of 
fools to regard genius as a disadvantage in practical life, 
to suppose that Swift was deficient in humbler attainments. 
Before long, however, he was back at Moor Park ; and a 
period followed in which his discontent with the position 
probably reached its height. Temple, indeed, must have 
discovered that his young dependent was really a man of 
capacity. He recommended him to William. In 1692 
Swift went to Oxford, to be admitted ad eundem, and 
received the M. A. degree ; and Swift, writing to thank 
his uncle for obtaining the necessary testimonials from 
Dublin, adds that he has been most civilly received at 
Oxford, on the strength, presumably, of Temple's recom- 
mendation, and that he is not to take orders till the King 
gives him a prebend. He suspects Temple, however, of 
being rather backward in the matter, "because (I sup- 
pose) he believes I shall leave him, and (upon some ac- 
counts) he thinks me a little necessary to him." Wil- 
liam, it is said, was so far gracious as to offer to make 
Swift a captain of horse, and instruct him in the Dutch 
mode of eating asparagus. By this last phrase hangs an 
anecdote of later days. Faulkner, the Dublin printer, was 
dining with Swift, and on asking for a second supply of 
asparagus was told by the Dean to finish what he had on 



20 SWIFT. [chap. 

his plate. "What, sir, eat my stalks?" "Ay, sir; King 
William always ate his stalks." "And were you," asked 
Faulkner's hearer, when he related the story, " were you 
blockhead enough to obey him ?" " Yes," replied Faulk- 
ner, " and if you had dined with Dean Swift tete-a-tete 
you would have been obliged to eat your stalks too !" 
For the present Swift was the recipient not the imposer 
of stalks ; and was to receive the first shock, as he tells 
us, that helped to cure him of his vanity. The question of 
the Triennial Bill was agitating political personages in the 
early months of 1693. William and his favourite minis- 
ter, the Earl of Portland, found their Dutch experience in- 
sufficient to guide them in the mysteries of English con- 
stitutionalism. Portland came down to consult Temple 
at Moor Park ; and Swift was sent back to explain to the 
great men that Charles I. had been ruined, not by consent- 
ing to short Parliaments, but by abandoning the right to 
dissolve Parliament. Swift says that he was " well versed 
in English history, though he was under twenty-one years 
old." (He was really tw r enty-five, but memory naturally 
exaggerated his youthfulness.) His arguments, however, 
backed by history, failed to carry conviction, and Swift 
had to unlearn some of the youthful confidence which 
assumes that reason is the governing force in this world, 
and that reason means our own opinions. That so young 
a man should have been employed on such an errand 
shows that Temple must have had a good opinion of his 
capacities; but his want of success, however natural, was 
felt as a grave discouragement. 

That his discontent was growing is clear from other 
indications. Swift's early poems, whatever their defects, 
have one merit common to all his writings — the merit of 
a thorough, sometimes an appalling, sincerity. Two poems 



il] MOOR PARK AND KILROOT. 21 

which begin to display his real vigour are dated at the end 
of 1693. One is an epistle to his schoolfellow, Congreve, 
expatiating, as some consolation for the cold reception of 
the Double Dealer, upon the contemptible nature of town 
critics. Swift describes, as a type of the whole race, a 
Farnham lad who had left school a year before, and had 
just returned a "finished spark" from London — 

" Stock'd with the latest gibberish of the town." 

This wretched little fop came in an evil hour to provoke 
Swift's hate: 

"My hate, whose lash just Heaven has long decreed 
Shall on a day make sin and folly bleed." 

And he already applies it with vigour enough to show 
that with some of the satirist's power he has also the 
indispensable condition of a considerable accumulation 
of indignant wrath against the self-appointed arbiters of 
taste. The other poem is more remarkable in its personal 
revelation. It begins as a congratulation to Temple on 
his recovery from an illness. It passes into a description 
of his own fate, marked by singular bitterness. He ad- 
dresses his muse as 

"Malignant goddess ! bane to my repose, 
Thou universal cause of all my woes." 

She is, it seems, a mere delusive meteor, with no real being 
of her own. But, if real, why does she persecute him ? 

" Wert thou right woman, thou should'st scorn to look 
On an abandon'd wretch by hopes forsook : 
Forsook by hopes, ill fortune's last relief, 
Assign'd for life to unremitting grief ; 
For let Heaven's wrath enlarge these weary days 
If hope e'er dawns the smallest of its rays." 



22 SWIFT. [chap. 

And he goes on to declare, after some vigorous lines : 

" To thee I owe that fatal bent of mind, 
Still to unhappy, restless thoughts inclined : 
To thee what oft I vainly strive to hide, 
That scorn of fools, by fools mistook for pride ; 
From thee, whatever virtue takes its rise, 
Grows a misfortune, or becomes a vice." 

The sudden gush as of bitter waters into the dulcet, 
insipid current of conventional congratulation gives addi- 
tional point to the sentiment. Swift expands the last 
couplet into a sentiment which remained with him through 
life. It is a blending of pride and remorse ; a regretful 
admission of the loftiness of spirit which has caused his 
misfortunes ; and we are puzzled to say whether the pride 
or the remorse be the most genuine. For Swift always 
unites pride and remorse in his consciousness of his own 
virtues. 

The "restlessness" avowed in these verses took the 
practical form of a rupture with Temple. In his auto- 
biographical fragment he says that he had a scruple of 
entering into the Church merely for support, and Sir Wil- 
liam, then being Master of the Rolls in Ireland, 1 offered 
him an employ of about 120Z. a year in that office ; where- 
upon Mr. Swift told him that since he had now an oppor- 
tunity of living without being driven into the Church for 
a maintenance, he was resolved to go to Ireland and take 
holy orders. If the scruple seems rather finely spun for 
Swift, the sense of the dignity of his profession is thor- 
oughly characteristic. Nothing, however, is more decep- 
tive than our memory of the motives which directed dis- 
tant actions. In his contemporary letters there is no hint 
of any scruple against preferment in the Church, but a de- 
1 Temple had the reversion of his father's office. 



ii.] MOOR FARK AND KILROOT. 23 

cided objection to insufficient preferment. It is possible 
that Swift was confusing dates, and that the scruple was 
quieted when he failed to take advantage of Temple's in- 
terest with Southwell. Having declined, he felt that he 
had made a free choice of a clerical career. In 1692, as 
we have seen, he expected a prebend from Temple's influ- 
ence with William. But his doubts of Temple's desire or 
power to serve him were confirmed. In June, 1694, he 
tells a cousin at Lisbon : " I have left Sir W. Temple a 
month ago, just as I foretold it you ; and everything hap- 
pened exactly as I guessed. He w T as extremely angry I 
left him ; and yet would not oblige himself any further 
than upon my good behaviour, nor would promise any- 
thing firmly to me at all ; so that everybody judged I did 
best to leave him." He is starting in four days for Dub- 
lin, and intends to be ordained in September. The next 
letter preserved completes the story, and implies a painful 
change in this cavalier tone of injured pride. Upon going 
to Dublin, Swift had found that some recommendation 
from Temple would be required by the authorities. He 
tried to evade the requirement, but was forced at last to 
write a letter to Temple, which nothing but necessity 
could have extorted. After explaining the case, he adds : 
" The particulars expected of me are what relates to morals 
and learning, and the reasons of quitting your honour's 
family ; that is, whether the last was occasioned by any ill 
actions. They are all left entirely to your honour's mercy, 
though in the past I think I cannot reproach myself any 
farther than for infirmities. This," he adds, " is all I dare 
beg at present from your honour, under circumstances of 
life not worth your regard ;" and all that is left him to 
wish (" next to the health and prosperity of your honour's 
family") is that Heaven will show him some day the op- 
2* 



24 SWIFT. [chap. 

portunity of making his acknowledgments at " your hon- 
our's" feet. This seems to be the only occasion on which 
we find Swift confessing to any fault except that of being 
too virtuous. 

The apparent doubt of Temple's magnanimity implied 
in the letter was, happily, not verified. The testimonial 
seems to have been sent at once. Swift, in any case, was 
ordained deacon on the 28th of October, 1694, and priest 
on the 15th of January, 1695. Probably Swift felt that 
Temple had behaved with magnanimity, and in any case it 
was not very long before he returned to Moor Park. lie 
had received from Lord Capel, then Lord Deputy, the small 
prebend of Kilroot, worth about 100/. a year. Little is 
known of his life as a remote country clergyman, except 
that he very soon became tired of it. 1 Swift soon 
resigned his prebend (in March, 1698), and managed to 
obtain the succession for a friend in the neighbourhood. 
But before this (in May, 1696) he had returned to Moor 
Park. He had grown weary of a life in a remote district, 
and Temple had raised his offers. He was glad to be 
once more on the edge at least of the great world in which 
alone could be found employment w T orthy of his talents. 
One other incident, indeed, of which a fuller account would 
be interesting, is connected with this departure. On the 
eve of his departure he wrote a passionate letter to 
" Varina," in plain English Miss Waring, sister of an old 
college chum. He " solemnly offers to forego all " (all 
his English prospects, that is) " for her sake." He does 
not want her fortune; she shall live where she pleases, 

1 It may be noticed, in illustration of the growth of the Swift 
legend, that two demonstrably false anecdotes — one imputing a 
monstrous crime, the other a romantic piece of benevolence to Swift 
— refer to this period. 



il] MOOR PARK AND KILROOT. 25 

till he has " pushed his advancement " and is in a position 
to marry her. The letter is full of true lovers' protesta- 
tions ; reproaches for her coldness ; hints at possible causes 
of jealousies ; declarations of the worthlessness of ambition 
as compared with love; and denunciations of her respect 
for the little disguises and affected contradictions of her 
sex, infinitely beneath persons of her pride and his own ; 
paltry maxims calculated only for the "rabble of human- 
ity." " By heaven, Varina," he exclaims, " you are more 
experienced and have less virgin innocence than I." The 
answer must have been unsatisfactory ; though, from ex- 
pressions in a letter to his successor to the prebend, we 
see that the affair was still going on in 1699. It will 
come to light once more. 

Swift was thus at Moor Park in the summer of 1696. 
He remained till Temple's death in January, 1699. We 
hear no more of any friction between Swift and his 
patron ; and it seems that the last years of their connex- 
ion passed in harmony. Temple was growing old; his 
wife, after forty years of a happy marriage, had died dur- 
ing Swift's absence in the beginning of 1695 ; and Tem- 
ple, though he seems to have been vigorous, and in spite 
of gout a brisk walker, was approaching the grave. He 
occupied himself in preparing, with Swift's help, memoirs 
and letters, which were left to Swift for posthumous 
publication. Swift's various irritations at Moor Park 
have naturally left a stronger impression upon his history 
than the quieter hours in which worry and anxiety might 
be forgotten in the placid occupations of a country life. 
That Swift enjoyed many such hours is tolerably clear. 
Moor Park is described by a Swiss traveller who visited 
it about 1691 1 as the "model of an agreeable retreat." 
1 M. Maralt. See appendix to Courtenay's Life of Temple. 



2G SWIFT. [chap. 

Temple's household was free from the coarse convivialities 
of the boozing fox-hunting squires ; whilst the recollection 
of its modest neatness made the " magnificent palace" of 
Petworth seem pompous and overpowering. Swift him- 
self remembered the Moor Park gardens, the special pride 
of Temple's retirement, with affection, and tried to imitate 
them on a small scale in his own garden at Laracor. Moot- 
Park is on the edge of the great heaths which stretch 
southward to Hindhead, and northward to Aldershot and 
Chobham Eidges. Though we can scarcely credit him 
with a modern taste in scenery, he at least anticipated the 
modern faith in athletic exercises. According to Deane 
Swift, he used to run up a hill near Temple's and back 
again to his study every two hours, doing the distance 
of half a mile in six minutes. In later life he preached 
the duty of walking with admirable perseverance to his 
friends. He joined other exercises occasionally. "My 
Lord," he says to Archbishop King in 1721, "I row after 
health like a waterman, and ride after it like a postboy, 
and with some little success." But he had the character- 
istic passion of the good and wise for walking. He men- 
tions incidentally a walk from Farnham to London, thirty- 
eight miles; and has some association with the Golden 
Farmer 1 — a point on the road from which there is still 
one of the loveliest views in the southern counties, across 
undulating breadths of heath and meadow, woodland and 
down, to "Windsor Forest, St. George's Hill, and the chalk 
range from Guildford to Epsom. Perhaps he might have 
been a mountaineer in more civilized times ; his poem on 
the Carbcrry rocks seems to indicate a lover of such 
scenery ; and he ventured so near the edge of the cliff upon 

1 The public-house at the point thus named on the Ordnance map 
is now (I regret to say) called the Jolly Farmer. 



il] MOOR PARK AND KILROOT. 27 

his stomach, that his servants had to drag him back by his 
heels. We find him proposing to walk to Chester at the 
rate, I regret to say, of only ten miles a day. In such 
rambles, we are told, he used to put up at wayside inns, 
where " lodgings for a penny " were advertised ; bribing 
the maid with a tester to give him clean sheets and a bed 
to himself. The love of the rough humour of waggoners 
and hostlers is supposed to have been his inducement to 
this practice, and the refined Orrery associates his coarse- 
ness with this lamentable practice ; but amidst the roar 
of railways we may think more tolerantly of the humours 
of the road in the good old days, when each village had 
its humours and traditions and quaint legends, and when 
homely maxims of unlettered wisdom were to be picked 
up at rustic firesides. 

Recreations of this kind were a relief to serious study. 
In Temple's library Swift found abundant occupation. " 1 
am often," he says, in the first period of his residence, 
"two or three months without seeing anybody besides 
the family." In a later fragment, we find him living 
alone " in great state," the cook coming for his orders for 
dinner, and the revolutions in the kingdom of the rooks 
amusing his leisure. The results of his studies will be 
considered directly. A list of books read in 1697 gives 
some hint of their general nature. They are chiefly 
classical and historical. He read Virgil, Homer, Horace, 
Lucretius, Cicero's Epistles, Petronius Arbiter, ^Elian, 
Lucius Florus, Herbert's Henry VIII., Sleidan's Com- 
mentaries, Council of Trent, Camden's Elizabeth, Burnet's 
History of the Reformation, Voiture, Blackmore's Prince 
Arthur, Sir J. Davis's poem of The Soul, and two or three 
travels, besides Cyprian and Irenaeus. We may note the 
absence of any theological reading, except in the form of 



28 SWIFT. [chap. 

ecclesiastical history ; nor does Swift study philosophy, of 
which he seems to have had a sufficient dose in Dublin. 
History seems always to have been his favourite study, and 
it would naturally have a large part in Temple's library. 

One matter of no small importance to Swift remains 
to be mentioned. Temple's family included other depen- 
dents besides Swift. The " little parson cousin," Tom 
Swift, whom his great relation always mentions with 
contempt, became chaplain to Temple. Jonathan's sister 
was for some time at Moor Park. But the inmates of the 
family most interesting to us were a Eebecca Dingley — 
who was in some way related to the family — and Esther 
Johnson. Esther Johnson was the daughter of a merchant 
of respectable family who died young. Her mother was 
known to Lady Giffard, Temple's attached sister ; and 
after her widowhood went with her two daughters to live 
with the Temples. Mrs. Johnson lived as servant or com- 
panion to Lady Giffard for many years after Temple's 
death ; and little Esther, a remarkably bright and pretty 
child, was brought up in the family, and received under 
Temple's will a sufficient legacy for her support. It was, 
of course, guessed by a charitable world that she was a 
natural child of Sir William's ; but there seems to be no 
real ground for the hypothesis. 1 She was born, as Swift 
tells us, on March 13, 1681; and was, therefore, a little 
over eight when Swift first came to Temple, and fifteen 
when he returned from Kilroot. 2 About this age, he tells 

1 The most direct statement to this effect was made in an article 
in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1757. It professes to speak with au- 
thority, but includes such palpable blunders as to carry little weight. 

8 I am not certain whether this means 1681 or 1681-82. I have 
assumed the former date in mentioning Stella's age ; but the other 
is equally possible. 



II.] MOOR PARK AND KILROOT. 29 

us, she got over an infantile delicacy, " grew into perfect 
health, and was looked upon as one of the most beautiful, 
graceful, and agreeable young women in London. Her 
hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her 
face in perfection." Her conduct and character were 
equally remarkable, if we may trust the tutor who taught 
her to write, guided her education, and came to regard her 
with an affection which was at once the happiness and the 
misery of his life. 

Temple died January 26, 1699 ; and "with him," said 
Swift at the time, "all that was good and amiable among 
men." The feeling was doubtless sincere, though Swift, 
when moved very deeply, used less conventional phrases. 
He was thrown once more upon the world. The expectations 
of some settlement in life had not been realized. Temple 
had left him 100/., the advantage of publishing his post- 
humous works, which might ultimately bring in 200/. 
more, and a promise of preferment from the King. Swift 
had lived long enough upon the "chameleon's food." 
His energies were still running to waste ; and he suffered 
the misery of a weakness due, not to want of power, but 
want of opportunity. His sister writes to a cousin that 
her brother had lost his best friend, who had induced 
him to give up his Irish preferment by promising prefer- 
ment in England, and had died before the promise had 
been fulfilled. Swift was accused of ingratitude by Lord 
Palmerston, Temple's nephew, some thirty-five years later. 
In reply, he acknowledged an obligation to Temple for 
the recommendation to William and the legacy of his 
papers ; but he adds : " I hope you will not charge my 
living in his family as an obligation ; for I was educated to 
little purpose if I retired to his house for any other motives 
than the benefit of his conversation and advice, and the 



30 SWIFT. [chap. 

opportunity of pursuing my studies. For, being born to 
no fortune, I was at his death as far to seek as ever ; and 
perhaps you will allow that I was of some use to him." 
Swift seems here to assume that his motives for living 
with Temple are necessarily to be estimated by the results 
which he obtained. But, if he expected more than he 
got, he does not suggest any want of good-will. Temple 
had done his best ; William's neglect and Temple's death 
had made good-will fruitless. The two might cry quits ; 
and Swift set to work, not exactly with a sense of injury, 
but probably with a strong feeling that a large portion 
of his life had been wasted. To Swift, indeed, misfort- 
une and injury seem equally to have meant resentment, 
whether against the fates or some personal object. 

One curious document must be noted before consider- 
ing the writings which most fully reveal the state of 
Swift's mind. In the year 1699 he wrote down some 
resolutions, headed "When I come to be old." They are 
for the most part pithy and sensible, if it can ever be sen- 
sible to make resolutions for behaviour in a distant future. 
Swift resolves not to marry a young woman, not to keep 
young company unless they desire it, not to repeat stories, 
not to listen to knavish, tattling servants, not to be too 
free of advice, not to brag of former beauty and favour 
with ladies, to desire some good friends to inform him 
when he breaks these resolutions, and to reform accord- 
ingly ; and, finally, not to set up for observing all these 
rules, for fear he should observe none. These resolutions 
are not very original in substance (few resolutions are), 
though they suggest some keen observation of his elders; 
but one is more remarkable : " Not to be fond of chil- 
dren, or let them come near me hardly" The words in 
italics are blotted out by a later possessor of the paper, 



ii.] MOOR PARK AND KILROOT. 31 

shocked, doubtless, at the harshness of the sentiment. 
" We do not fortify ourselves with resolutions against 
what we dislike," says a friendly commentator, "but 
against what we feel in our weakness we have reason to 
believe we are really too much inclined to." Yet it is 
strange that a man should regard the purest and kindliest 
of feelings as a weakness to which he is too much in- 
clined. No man had stronger affections than Swift; no 
man suffered more agony when they were wounded ; but 
in his agony he would commit what to most men would 
seem the treason of cursing the affections instead of sim- 
ply lamenting the injury, or holding the affection itself 
to be its own sufficient reward. The intense personality 
of the man reveals itself alternately as selfishness and as 
"altruism." He grappled to his heart those whom he 
really loved " as with hoops of steel ;" so firmly that they 
became a part of himself ; and that he considered himself 
at liberty to regard his love of friends as he might regard 
a love of wine, as something to be regretted when it was 
too strong for his own happiness. The attraction was in- 
tense, but implied the absorption of the weaker nature 
into his own. His friendships were rather annexations 
than alliances. The strongest instance of this character- 
istic was in his relations to the charming girl who must 
have been in his mind when he wrote this strange, and 
unconsciously prophetic, resolution. 



CHAPTER III. 

EARLY WRITINGS. 

Swift came to Temple's bouse as a raw student. He left 
it as the author of one of the most remarkable satires ever 
written. His first efforts had been unpromising enough. 
Certain Pindaric Odes, in which the youthful aspirant 
imitated the still popular model of Cowley, are even comi- 
cally prosaic. The last of them, dated 1691, is addressed 
to a queer Athenian Society, promoted by a John Dun- 
ton, a speculative bookseller, whose Life and Errors is 
still worth a glance from the curious. The Athenian So- 
ciety was the name of John Dunton himself, and two or 
three collaborators who professed in the Athenian Mer- 
cury to answer queries ranging over the whole field of 
human knowledge. Temple was one of their patrons, and 
Swift sent them a panegyrical ode, the merits of which 
are sufficiently summed up by Dryden's pithy criticism: 
" Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet." Swift disliked 
and abused Drydcn ever afterwards, though he may have 
had better reasons for his enmity than the child's dislike 
to bitter medicine. Later poems, the Epistle to Congreve 
and that to Temple already quoted, show symptoms of 
growing power and a clearer self-recognition. In Swift's 
last residence with Temple he proved unmistakably that 
he had learnt the secret often so slowly revealed to great 
writers, the secret of his real strength. The Tale of a 



chap, in.] EARLY WRITINGS. 33 

Tub was written about 1696; part of it appears to have 
been seen at Kilroot by his friend, Waring, Varina's 
brother; the Battle of the Books was written in 1697. 
It is a curious proof of Swift's indifference to a literary 
reputation that both works remained in manuscript till 
1704. The "little parson cousin," Tom Swift, ventured 
some kind of claim to a share in the authorship of the 
Tale of a Tub. Swift treated this claim with the utmost 
contempt, but never explicitly claimed for himself the 
authorship of what some readers hold to be his most 
powerful work. 

The Battle of the Books, to which we may first attend, 
sprang out of the famous controversy as to the relative 
merits of the ancients and moderns, which began in France 
with Perrault and Fontenelle ; which had been set going 
in England by Sir W. Temple's essay upon ancient and 
modern learning (1692), and which incidentally led to the 
warfare between Bentley and Wotton on one side, and 
Boyle and his Oxford allies on the other. A full account 
of this celebrated discussion may be found in Professor 
Jebb's Bentley ; and, as Swift only took the part of a 
light skirmisher, nothing more need be said of it in this 
place. One point alone is worth notice. The eagerness 
of the discussion is characteristic of a time at which the 
modern spirit was victoriously revolting against the an- 
cient canons of taste and philosophy. At first sight we 
might, therefore, expect the defenders of antiquity to be 
on the side of authority. In fact, however, the argument, 
as Swift takes it from Temple, is reversed. Temple's the- 
ory, so far as he had any consistent theory, is indicated in 
the statement that the moderns gathered " all their learn- 
ing from books in the universities." Learning, he sug- 
gests, may weaken invention ; and people who trust to the 



34 SWIFT. [chap. 

charity of others will always be poor. Swift accepts and 
enforces this doctrine. The Battle of the Books is an ex- 
pression of that contempt for pedants which he had learnt 
in Dublin, and which is expressed in the ode to the Athe- 
nian Society. Philosophy, he tells us in that precious pro- 
duction, "seems to have borrowed some ungrateful taste of 
doubts, impertinence, and niceties from every age through 
which it passed " (this, I may observe, is verse), and is now 
a " medley of all ages," " her face patched over with mod- 
ern pedantry." The moral finds a more poetical embodi- 
ment in the famous apologue of the Bee and the Spider 
in the Battle of the Books. The bee had got itself entan- 
gled in the spider's web in the library, whilst the books 
were beginning to wrangle. The two have a sharp dis- 
pute, which is summed up by iEsop as arbitrator. The 
spider represents the moderns, who spin their scholastic 
pedantry out of their own insides ; whilst the bee, like 
the ancients, goes direct to nature. The moderns produce 
nothing but " wrangling and satire, much of a nature with 
the spider's poison, which, however they pretend to spit 
wholly out of themselves, is improved by the same arts, by 
feeding upon the insects and vermin of the age." We, 
the ancients, " profess to nothing of our own beyond our 
wings and our voice : that is to say, our flights and our 
language. For the rest, whatever we have got has been 
by infinite labour and research, and ranging through every 
corner of nature ; the difference is that, instead of dirt 
and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with 
honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two 
noblest of things, which are sweetness and light." 

The Homeric battle which follows is described with in- 
finite spirit. Pallas is the patron of the ancients, whilst 
Momus undertakes the cause of the moderns, and appeals 



ni.J EARLY WRITINGS. 35 

for help to the malignant deity Criticism, who is found in 
her den at the top of a snowy mountain, extended upon 
the spoils of numberless half-devoured volumes. By her, 
as she exclaims in the regulation soliloquy, children be- 
come wiser than their parents, beaux become politicians, 
and schoolboys judges of philosophy. She flies to her 
darling Wotton, gathering up her person into an octavo 
compass ; her body grows white and arid, and splits in 
pieces with dryness ; a concoction of gall and soot is 
strewn in the shape of letters upon her person ; and so 
she joins the moderns, " undistinguishable in shape and 
dress from the divine Bentley, "Wotton's dearest friend." 
It is needless to follow the fortunes of the fight which 
follows; it is enough to observe that Virgil is encoun- 
tered by his translator Dryden in a helmet " nine times 
too large for the head, which appeared situate far in the 
hinder part, even like the lady in the lobster, or like a 
mouse under a canopy of state, or like a shrivelled beau 
within the penthouse of a modern periwig ; and the voice 
was suited to the visage, sounding weak and remote ;" and 
that the book is concluded by an episode, in which Bent- 
ley and Wotton try a diversion and steal the armour of 
Phalaris and JEsop, but are met by Boyle, clad in a suit 
of armour given him by all the gods, who transfixes 
them on his spear like a brace of woodcocks on an iron 
skewer. 

The raillery, if taken in its critical aspect, recoils upon 
the author. Dryden hardly deserves the scorn of Virgil ; 
and Bentley, as we know, made short work of Phalaris 
and Boyle. But Swift probably knew and cared little for 
the merits of the controversy. He expresses his contempt 
with characteristic vigour and coarseness; and our pleas- 
ure in his display of exuberant satirical power is not in- 



86 SWIFT. [chap. 

jured by bis obvious misconception of the merits of the 
case. The unflagging spirit of the writing, the fertility 
and ingenuity of the illustrations, do as much as can be 
done to give lasting vitality to what is radically (to my 
taste at least) a rather dreary form of wit. The Battle 
of the Books is the best of the travesties. Nor in the brill- 
iant assault upon great names do we at present see any- 
thing more than the buoyant consciousness of power, com- 
mon in the unsparing judgments of youth, nor edged as 
yet by any real bitterness. Swift has found out that the 
world is full of humbugs; and goes forth hewing and 
hacking with superabundant energy, not yet aware that 
he too may conceivably be a fallible being, and still less 
that the humbugs may some day prove too strong for 
him. 

The same qualities are more conspicuous in the far 
greater satire, the Tale of a Tub. It is so striking a per- 
formance that Johnson, who cherished one of his stubborn 
prejudices against Swift, doubted whether Swift could 
have written it. " There is in it," he said, " such a vigour 
of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, 
and art, and life." The doubt is clearly without the least 
foundation, and the estimate upon which it is based is 
generally disputed. The Tale of a Tub has certainly not 
achieved a reputation equal to that of Gullivers Travels, 
to the merits of which Johnson was curiously blind. Yet 
I think that there is this much to be said in favour of 
Johnson's theory, namely, that Swift's style reaches its 
highest point in the earlier work. There is less flagging ; 
a greater fulness and pressure of energetic thought; a 
power of hitting the nail on the head at the first blow, 
which has declined in the work of his maturer years, when 
life was weary and thought intermittent. Swift seems 



in.] EARLY WRITINGS. 37 

to have felt this himself. In the twilight of his intellect 
he was seen turning over the pages and murmuring to 
himself, "Good God, what a genius I had when I wrote 
that book!" In an apology (dated 1709) he makes a 
statement which may help to explain this fact. "The 
author," he says, "was then (1G96) young, his invention 
at the height, and his reading fresh in his head. By the 
assistance of some thinking and much conversation, he 
had endeavoured to strip himself of as many prejudices 
as he could." He resolved, as he adds, " to proceed in a 
manner entirely new ;" and he afterwards claims in the 
most positive terms that through the whole book (in- 
cluding both the tale and the battle of the books) he has 
not borrowed one "single hint from any writer in the 
world." 1 No writer has ever been more thoroughly origi- 
nal than Swift, for his writings are simply himself. 

The Tale of a Tub is another challenge thrown down 
to pretentious pedantry. The vigorous, self-confident in- 
tellect has found out the emptiness and absurdity of a 
number of the solemn formulae w 7 hich pass current in the 
world, and tears them to pieces with audacious and re- 
joicing energy. He makes a mock of the paper chains 
with which solemn professors tried to fetter his activity, 
and scatters the fragments to the four winds of Heaven. 

1 Wotton first accused Swift of borrowing the idea of the battle 
from a French book, by one Coutray, called Histoire Poetique de 
la Guerre nouvellement declaree enire les Anciens et Modernes. Swift 
declared (I have no doubt truly) that he had never seen or heard of 
this book. But Coutray, like Swift, uses the scheme of a mock 
Homeric battle. The book is prose, but begins with a poem. The 
resemblance is much closer than Mr. Forster's language would imply; 
but I agree with him that it does not justify Johnson and Scott in 
regarding it as more than a natural coincidence. Every detail is 
different. 



38 SWIFT. [chap. 

In one of the first sections he announces the philosophy 
afterwards expounded by Herr Teufelsdrockh, according 
to which "man himself is but a micro-coat;" if one of the 
suits of clothes called animals "be trimmed up with a 
gold chain, and a red gown, and a white rod, and a pert 
look, it is called a Lord Mayor; if certain ermines and 
furs be placed in a certain position, we style them a judge ; 
and so an apt conjunction of lawn and black satin we 
entitle a bishop." Though Swift does not himself de- 
velop this philosophical doctrine, its later form reflects 
light upon the earlier theory. For, in truth, Swift's 
teaching comes to this, that the solemn plausibilities of 
the world are but so many "shams" — elaborate masks 
used to disguise the passions, for the most part base 
and earthly, by w r hich mankind is really impelled. The 
" digressions " which he introduces with the privilege of 
a humorist bear chiefly upon the literary sham. He falls 
foul of the whole population of Grub Street at starting, 
and (as I may note in passing) incidentally gives a curious 
hint of his authorship. He describes himself as a worn- 
out pamphleteer who has worn his quill to the pith in 
the service of the state: "Fourscore and eleven pamphlets 
have I writ under the reigns and for the service of six- 
and-thirty patrons." Porson first noticed that the same 
numbers are repeated in Gulliver's Travels; Gulliver is 
fastened with "fourscore and eleven chains" locked to 
his left leg " with six-and-thirty padlocks." Swift makes 
the usual onslaught of a young author upon the critics, 
with more than the usual vigour, and carries on the war 
against Bentley and his ally by parodying Wotton's re- 
marks upon the ancients. He has discovered many omis- 
sions in Homer, "who seems to Jiave read but very su- 
perficially cither Sendivogus, Behmcn, or Anthroposo2>hia 



in.] EARLY WRITINGS. 39 

Magia. m Homer, too, never mentions a saveall ; and lias 
a still worse fault — his " gross ignorance in the common 
laws of this realm, and in the doctrine as w T ell as discipline 
of the Church of England " — defects, indeed, for which he 
has been justly censured by Wotton. Perhaps the most 
vigorous and certainly the most striking of these digres- 
sions is that upon "the original use and improvement of 
madness in a commonwealth." Just in passing, as it were, 
Swift gives the pith of a whole system of misanthropy, 
though he as yet seems to be rather indulging a play of 
fancy than expressing a settled conviction. Happiness, he 
says, is a "perpetual possession of being well deceived." 
The wisdom which keeps on the surface is better than 
that which persists in officiously prying into the under- 
lying reality. "Last week I saw a woman flayed," he 
observes, "and you will hardly believe how much it 
altered her person for the worse." It is best to be 
content with patching up the outside, and so assuring 
the "serene, peaceful state" — the sublimest point of 
felicity — " of being a fool amongst knaves." He goes 
on to tell us how useful madmen may be made : how 
Curtius may be regarded equally as a madman and a 
hero for his leap into the gulf; how the raging, blas- 
pheming, noisy inmate of Bedlam is fit to have a regi- 
ment of dragoons ; and the bustling, sputtering, bawling 
madman should be sent to Westminster Hall; and the 
solemn madman, dreaming dreams and -seeing best in the 
dark, to preside over a congregation of Dissenters ; and 
how elsewhere you may find the raw T material of the 

1 This was a treatise by Thomas, twin brother of Henry Taughan, 
the u Silurist." It led to a controversy with Henry More. Yaughan 
was a Rosicrucian. Swift's contempt for mysteries is characteristic. 
Sendivogus was a famous alchemist (1566 — 1646). 
3 



40 SWIFT. [chap. 

merchant, the courtier, or the monarch. We are all 
madmen, and happy so far as mad : delusion and peace 
of mind go together ; and the more truth we know, the 
more shall we recognize that realities are hideous. Swift 
only plays with his paradoxes. He laughs without trou- 
bling himself to decide whether his irony tells against the 
theories which he ostensibly espouses, or those which he 
ostensibly attacks. But he has only to adopt in serious- 
ness the fancy with which he is dallying, in order to 
graduate as a finished pessimist. These, however, are 
interruptions to the main thread of the book, which is 
a daring assault upon that serious kind of pedantry 
which utters itself in theological systems. The three 
brothers, Peter, Martin, and Jack, represent, as we all 
know, the Roman Catholic, the Anglican, and the Puri- 
tanical varieties of Christianity. They start with a new 
coat provided for each by their father, and a will to 
explain the right mode of wearing it; and after some 
years of faithful observance they fall in love with the 
three ladies of wealth, ambition, and pride, get into ter- 
ribly bad ways, and make wild work of the coats and the 
will. They excuse themselves for wearing shoulder-knots 
by picking the separate letters S, H, and so forth, out of 
separate words in the will, and as K is wanting, discover 
it to be synonymous with C. They reconcile themselves 
to gold lace by remembering that when they were boys 
they heard a fellow say that he had heard their father's 
man say that he would advise his sons to get gold lace 
when they had money enough to buy it. Then, as the 
will becomes troublesome in spite of exegetical ingenuity, 
the eldest brother finds a convenient codicil which can be 
tacked to it, and will sanction a new fashion of flame-col- 
oured satin. The will expressly forbids silver fringe on the 



in.] EARLY WRITINGS. 41 

coats; but they discover that the word meaning silver 
fringe may also signify a broomstick. And by such 
devices they go on merrily for a time, till Peter sets up 
to be the sole heir and insists upon the obedience of his 
brethren. His performances in this position are trying to 
their temper. " Whenever it happened that any rogue of 
Newgate was condemned to be hanged, Peter would offer 
him a pardon for a certain sum of money ; which, when 
the poor caitiff had made all shifts to scrape up and send, 
his lordship would return a piece of paper in this form : 

" * To all mayors, sheriffs, jailors, constables, bailiffs, hang- 
men, &c. — Whereas we are informed that A. B. remains in 
the hands of you or some of you, under the sentence of 
death : We will and command you, upon sight hereof, to 
let the said prisoner depart to his own habitation, whether 
he stands condemned for murder, &c, &c., for which this 
shall be your sufficient warrant ; and if you, fail hereof, 
God damn you and yours to all eternity; and so we bid 
you heartily farewell. — Your most humble man's man, 
Emperor Peter.' 

"The wretches, trusting to this, lost their lives and 
their money too." Peter, however, became outrageously 
proud. He has been seen to take "three old high- 
crowned hats and clap them all on his head three-storey 
high, with a huge bunch of keys at his girdle, and an 
angling-rod in his hand. In which guise, w T hoever went 
to take him by the hand in the way of salutation, Peter, 
with much grace, like a well-educated spaniel, would pre- 
sent them with his foot ; and if they refused his civility, 
then he would raise it as high as their chops, and give 
him a damned kick on the mouth, which has ever since 
been called a salute." 

Peter receives his brothers at dinner, and has nothing 



42 SWIFT. [chap. 

served up but a brown loaf. "Come," he says, "fall on 
and spare not ; here is excellent good mutton," and he 
helps them each to a slice. The brothers remonstrate, 
and try to point out that they see only bread. They 
argue for some time, but have to give in to a conclusive 
argument. " 'Loot ye, gentlemen,' cries Peter, in a rage, 
1 to convince you what a couple of blind, positive, igno-. 
rant, wilful puppies you are, I will use but this simple ar- 
gument. By G — it is true, good, natural mutton as any 
in Leadenhall Market; and G— confound you both eter- 
nally if you offer to believe otherwise.' Such a thunder- 
ing proof as this left no further room for objection ; the 
two unbelievers began to gather and pocket up their mis- 
take as hastily as they could," and have to admit besides 
that another large dry crust is true juice of the grape. 

The brothers Jack and Martin afterwards fall out, and 
Jack is treated to a storm of ridicule much in the same 
vein as that directed against Peter ; and, if less pointed, 
certainly not less expressive of contempt. I need not fur- 
ther follow the details of what Johnson calls this " wild 
book," which is in every page brimful of intense satirical 
power. I must, however, say a few words upon a matter 
which is of great importance in forming a clear judgment 
of Swift's character. The Tale of a Tub was universally 
attributed to Swift, and led to many doubts of his ortho- 
doxy and even of his Christianity. Sharpe, Archbishop of 
York, injured Swift's chances of preferment by insinuating 
such doubts to Queen Anne. Swift bitterly resented the 
imputation. He prefixed an apology to a later edition, in 
which he admitted that he had said some rash things ; but 
declared that he would forfeit his life if any one opinion 
contrary to morality or religion could be fairly deduced 
from the book. He pointed out that he had attacked no 



iil] EARLY WRITINGS. 43 

Anglican doctrine. His ridicule spares Martin, and is 
pointed at Peter and Jack. Like every satirist who ever 
wrote, lie does not attack the use but the abuse; and as 
the Church of England represents for him the purest em- 
bodiment of the truth, an attack upon the. abuses of relig- 
ion meant an attack upon other churches only in so far 
as they diverged from this model. Critics have accepted 
this apology, and treated poor Queen Anne and her ad- 
visers as representing simply the prudery of the tea-table. 
The question, to my thinking, does not admit of quite so 
simple an answer. 

If, in fact, we ask what is the true object of Swift's au- 
dacious satire, the answer will depend partly upon our own 
estimate of the truth. Clearly it ridicules " abuses ;" but 
one man's use is another's abuse, and a dogma may ap- 
pear to us venerable or absurd according to our own creed. 
One test, however, may be suggested which may guide our 
decision. Imagine the Tale of a Tub to be read by Bishop 
Butler and by Voltaire, who called Swift a Rabelais *per- 
fectionne. Can any one doubt that the believer w r ould be 
scandalized and the scoffer find himself in a thoroughly 
congenial element ? Would not any believer shrink from 
the use of such weapons even though directed against his 
enemies? Scott urges that the satire was useful to the 
High Church party because, as he says, it is important for 
any institution in Britain (or anywhere else, we may add) 
to have the laughers on its side. But Scott was too saga- 
cious not to indicate the obvious reply. The condition of 
having the laughers on your side is to be on the side of 
the laughers. Advocates of any serious cause feel that 
there is a danger in accepting such an alliance. The 
laughers who join you in ridiculing your enemy are by 
no means pledged to refrain from laughing in turn at the 



44 SWIFT. [chap. 

laugher. When Swift had ridiculed all the Catholic and 
all the Puritan dogmas in the most unsparing fashion, 
could he be sure that the Thirty-nine Articles would es- 
cape scot-free ? The Catholic theory of a Church possess- 
ing divine authority, the Puritan theory of a divine voice 
addressing the individual soul, suggested to him, in their 
concrete embodiments at least, nothing but a horse-laugh. 
Could any one be sure that the Anglican embodiment of 
the same theories might not be turned to equal account by 
the scoffer ? Was the true bearing of Swift's satire in fact 
limited to the deviations from sound Church of England 
doctrine, or might it not be directed against the very vital 
principle of the doctrine itself ? 

Swift's blindness to such criticisms was thoroughly char- 
acteristic. He professes, as we have seen, that he had need 
to clear his mind of real prejudices. He admits that the 
process might be pushed too far; that is, that in abandon- 
ing a prejudice you may be losing a principle. In fact, 
the prejudices from which Swift had sought to free him- 
self — and no doubt with great success — were the prejudices 
of other people. For them he felt unlimited contempt. 
But the prejudice which had grown up in his mind, 
strengthened with his strength, and become intertwined 
with all his personal affections and antipathies, was no 
longer a prejudice in his eyes, but a sacred principle. The 
intensity of his contempt for the follies of others shut his 
eyes effectually to any similarity between their tenets and 
his own. His principles, true or false, were prejudices in 
the highest degree, if by a prejudice we mean an opinion 
cherished because it has somehow or other become ours, 
though the " somehow " may exclude all reference to rea- 
son. Swift never troubled himself to assign any philo- 
sophical basis for his doctrines ; having, indeed, a hearty 



in.] EARLY WHITINGS. 45 

contempt for philosophizing in general. He clung to the 
doctrines of his Church, not because he could give abstract 
reasons for his belief, but simply because the Church hap- 
pened to be his. It is equally true of all his creeds, polit- 
ical or theological, that he loved them as he loved his 
friends, simply because they had become a part of him- 
self, and were, therefore, identified with all his hopes, am- 
bitions, and aspirations, public or private. "We shall see 
hereafter how fiercely he attacked the Dissenters, and how 
scornfully he repudiated all arguments founded upon the 
desirability of union amongst Protestants. To a calm 
outside observer differences might appear to be superficial ; 
but to him no difference could be other than radical and 
profound which in fact divided him from an antagonist. 
In attacking the Presbyterians, cried more temperate 
people, you are attacking your brothers and your own 
opinions. No, replied Swift, I am attacking the cor- 
ruption of my principles; hideous caricatures of myself; 
caricatures the more hateful in proportion to their apparent 
likeness. And therefore, whether in political or theologi- 
cal warfare, he was sublimely unconscious of the possible 
reaction of his arguments. 

Swift took a characteristic mode of showing that if upon 
some points he accidentally agreed w T ith the unbeliever, 
it was not from any covert sympathy. Two of his most 
vigorous pieces of satire in later days are directed against 
the deists. In 1708 he published an Argument to prove 
that the abolishing of Christianity in England may, as 
things now stand, be attended tvith some inconveniences, 
and perhaps not produce those many good effects proposed 
thereby. And in 1 71 3, in the midst of his most eager 
political warfare, he published Mr. Collins } s Discourse of 
FreetMnking, put into plain English, by way of abstract, 



46 SWIFT. [chap. 

for use of the poor. No one who reads these pamphlets 
can deny that the keenest satire may be directed against 
infidels as well as against Christians. The last is an 
admirable parody, in which poor Collins's arguments are 
turned against himself with ingenious and provoking irony. 
The first is, perhaps, Swift's cleverest application of the 
same method. A nominal religion, he urges gravely, is of 
some use, for if men cannot be allowed a God to revile or 
renounce, they will speak evil of dignities, and may even 
come to " reflect upon the ministry." If Christianity 
were once abolished, the wits would be deprived of their 
favourite topic. " Who would ever have suspected Asgil 
for a wit or Toland for a philosopher if the inexhaustible 
stock of Christianity had not been at hand to provide 
them with materials ?" The abolition of Christianity, 
moreover, may possibly bring the Church into danger, for 
atheists, deists, and Socinians have little zeal for the pres- 
ent ecclesiastical establishment ; and if they once get rid of 
Christianity, they may aim at setting up Presbyterianisra. 
Moreover, as long as we keep to any religion, we do not 
strike at the root of the evil. The freethinkers consider 
that all the parts hold together, and that if you pull out 
one nail the whole fabric will fall. "Which, he says, was 
happily expressed by one who heard that a text brought 
in proof of the Trinity was differently read in some an- 
cient manuscript ; whereupon he suddenly leaped through 
a long sorites to the logical conclusion : " Why, if it be 
as you say, I may safely . . . . drink on and defy the 
parson." 

A serious meaning underlies Swift's sarcasms. Collins 
had argued in defence of the greatest possible freedom of 
discussion, and tacitly assumed that such discussion would 
lead to disbelief of Christianity. Opponents of the liberal 



iii.J EARLY WRITINGS. 47 

school had answered by claiming his first principle as 
their own. They argued that religion was based upon 
reason, and would be strengthened instead of weakened 
by free inquiry. Swift virtually takes a different position. 
He objects to freethinking because ordinary minds are 
totally unfit for such inquiries. " The bulk of mankind," 
as he puts it, is as " well qualified for flying as thinking ;" 
and therefore free-thought would lead to anarchy, atheism, 
and immorality, as liberty to fly w r ould lead to a breaking 
of necks. 

Collins rails at priests as tyrants upheld by imposture. 
Swift virtually replies that they are the sole guides to 
truth and guardians of morality, and that theology should 
be left to them, as medicine to physicians and law to law- 
yers. The argument against the abolition of Christianity 
takes the same ground. Eeligion, how T ever little regard 
is paid to it in practice, is, in fact, the one great security 
for a decent degree of social order; and the rash fools 
who venture to reject what they do not understand are 
public enemies as well as ignorant sciolists. 

The same view is taken in Swift's sermons. He said 
of himself that he could only preach political pamphlets. 
Several of the twelve sermons preserved are in fact directly 
aimed at some of the political and social grievances which 
he was habitually denouncing. If not exactly "pam- 
phlets," they are sermons in aid of pamphlets. Others 
are vigorous and sincere moral discourses. One alone 
deals with a purely theological topic : the doctrine of the 
Trinity. His view is simply that " men of wicked lives 
would be very glad if there were no truth in Christianity 
at all." They therefore cavil at the mysteries to find some 
excuse for giving up the whole. He replies in effect that 
there must be mystery, though not contradiction, every- 
3* 



48 SWIFT. [chap. 

where, and that if we do not accept humbly what is taught 
in the Scriptures, we must give up Christianity, and con- 
sequently, as he holds, all moral obligation, at once. The 
cavil is merely the pretext of an evil conscience. Swift's 
religion thus partook of the directly practical nature of 
his whole character. He w T as absolutely indifferent to 
speculative philosophy. He was even more indifferent to 
the mystical or imaginative aspects of religion. He loved 
downright concrete realities, and was not the man to lose 
himself in an Oh, altitado ! or in any train of thought or 
emotion not directly bearing upon the actual business of 
the world. Though no man had more pride in his order 
or love of its privileges, Swift never emphasized his pro- 
fessional character. He wished to be accepted as a man 
of the world and of business. He despised the unpracti- 
cal and visionary type, and the kind of religious utterance 
congenial to men of that type was abhorrent to him. He 
shrank invariably too from any display of his emotion, and 
would have felt the heartiest contempt for the senti- 
mentalism of his day. At once the proudest and most 
sensitive of men, it was his imperative instinct to hide 
his emotions as much as possible. In cases of great ex- 
citement he retired into some secluded corner, where, if 
he w T as forced to feel, he could be sure of hiding his 
feelings. He always masks his strongest passions under 
some ironical veil, and thus practised what his friends 
regarded as an inverted hypocrisy. Delany tells us that 
he stayed for six months in Swift's house before discover- 
ing that the Dean always read prayers to his servants at a 
fixed hour in private. A deep feeling of solemnity showed 
itself in his manner of performing public religious exer- 
cises ; but Delany, a man of a very different temperament, 
blames his friend for carrying his reserve in all such mat- 



in.] EARLY WRITINGS. 49 

ters to extremes. In certain respects Swift was ostenta- 
tious enough ; but this intense dislike to wearing his 
heart upon his sleeve, to laying bare the secrets of his 
affections before unsympathetic eyes, is one of his most 
indelible characteristics. Swift could never have felt the 
slightest sympathy for the kind of preacher who courts 
applause by a public exhibition of intimate joys and sor- 
rows; and was less afraid of suppressing some genuine 
emotion than of showing any in the slightest degree un- 
real. 

Although Swift took in the main what may be called 
the political view of religion, he did not by any means 
accept that view in its cynical form. He did not, that is, 
hold, in Gibbon's famous phrase, that all religions were 
equally false and equally useful. His religious instincts 
were as strong and genuine as they were markedly un- 
demonstrative. He came to take (I am anticipating a 
little) a gloomy view of the world and of human nature. 
He had the most settled conviction not only of the mis- 
ery of human life but of the feebleness of the good ele- 
ments in the world. The bad and the stupid are the 
best fitted for life as we find it. Virtue is generally a 
misfortune ; the more we sympathize, the more cause we 
have for wretchedness ; our affections give us the purest 
kind of happiness, and yet our affections expose us to 
sufferings which more than outweigh the enjoyments. 
There is no such thing, he said in his decline, as " a fine 
old gentleman ;" if so-and-so had had either a mind or a 
body worth a farthing, " they would have worn him out long 
ago." That became a typical sentiment with Swift. His 
doctrine was, briefly, that : virtue was the one thing which 
deserved love and admiration ; and yet that virtue, in this 
hideous chaos of a world, involved misery and decay. 



CO SWIFT. [chap. hi. 

"What would be the logical result of such a creed I do not 
presume to say. Certainly, we should guess, something 
more pessimistic or Manichsean than suits the ordinary 
interpretation of Christian doctrine. But for Swift this 
state of mind carried with it the necessity of clinging to 
some religious creed: not because the creed held out 
promises of a better hereafter — for Swift was too much 
absorbed in the present to dwell much upon such beliefs — 
but rather because it provided him with some sort of fixed 
convictions in this strange and disastrous muddle. If it 
did not give a solution in terms intelligible to the human 
intellect, it encouraged the belief that some solution ex- 
isted. It justified him to himself for continuing to re- 
spect morality, and for going on living, when all the game 
of life seemed to be decidedly going in favour of the 
devil, and suicide to be the most reasonable course. At 
least, it enabled him to associate himself with the causes 
and principles w 7 hich he recognized as the most ennobling 
element in the world's " mad farce ;" and to utter himself 
in formulae consecrated by the use of such wise and good 
beings as had hitherto shown themselves amongst a 
wretched race. Placed in another situation, Swift, no 
doubt, might have put his creed — to speak after the 
Clothes Philosophy — into a different dress. The sub- 
stance could not have been altered, unless his whole 
character as well as his particular opinions had been 
profoundly modified. 



CHAPTER IV. 

LARACOR AND LONDON. 

Swift at the age of thirty-one had gained a. small amount 
of cash and a promise from William. He applied to the 
King, but the great man in whom he trusted failed to de- 
liver his petition ; and, after some delay, he accepted an 
invitation to become chaplain and secretary to the Earl of 
Berkeley, just made one of the Lords Justices of Ireland. 
He acted as secretary on the journey to Ireland; but, 
upon reaching Dublin, Lord Berkeley gave the post to 
another man, who had persuaded him that it was unfit for 
a clergyman. Swift next claimed the deanery of Deny, 
which soon became vacant. The secretary had been 
bribed by 1000/. from another candidate, upon whom the 
deanery was bestowed ; but Swift was told that he might 
still have the preference for an equal bribe. Unable or 
unwilling to comply, he took leave of Berkeley and the 
secretary, with the pithy remark, "God confound you 
both for a couple of scoundrels." He was partly pacified, 
however (February, 1700), by the gift of Laracor, a village 
near Trim, some twenty miles from Dublin. Two other 
small livings, and a prebend in the cathedral of St. 
Patrick, made up a revenue of about 2301. a year. 1 The 
income enabled him to live ; but, in spite of the rigid 
economy which he always practised, did not enable him 
1 See Forster, p. 117. 



52 SWIFT. [chap. 

to save. Marriage under such circumstances would have 
meant the abandonment of an ambitious career. A wife 
and family would have anchored him to his country par- 
sonage. 

This may help to explain an unpleasant episode which 
followed. Poor Varina had resisted Swift's entreaties, 
on the ground of her own ill-health and Swift's want of 
fortune. She now, it seems, thought that the economical 
difficulty was removed by Swift's preferment, and wished 
the marriage to take place. Swift replied in a letter, 
which contains all our information, and to which I can 
apply no other epithet than brutal. Some men might 
feel bound to fulfil a marriage engagement, even when 
love had grown cold; others might think it better to 
break it off in the interests of both parties. Swift's plan 
was to offer to fulfil it on conditions so insulting that no 
one with a grain of self-respect could accept. In his let- 
ter he expresses resentment for Miss Wiring's previous 
treatment of him ; he reproaches her bitterly with the 
company in which she lives — including, as it seems, her 
mother ; no young woman in the world with her income 
should "dwindle away her health in such a sink and 
among such family conversation." He explains that he is 
still poor ; he doubts the improvement of her own health ; 
and he then says that if she will submit to be educated so 
as to be capable of entertaining him : to accept all his 
likes and dislikes : to soothe his ill-humour, and live 
cheerfully wherever he pleases, he will take her without 
inquiring into her looks or her income. " Cleanliness in 
the first, and competency in the other, is all I look for." 
Swift could be the most persistent and ardent of friends. 
But, when any one tried to enforce claims no longer con- 
genial to his feelings, the appeal to the galling obligation 



iv.] LARACOR AND LONDON. 53 

stung him into ferocity, and brought out the most brutal 
side of his imperious nature. 

It was in the course of the next year that Swift took a 
step which has sometimes been associated with this. The 
death of Temple had left Esther Johnson homeless. The 
small fortune left to her by Temple consisted of an Irish 
farm. Swift suggested to her that she and her friend 
Mrs. Dingley would get better interest for their money, 
and live more cheaply, in Ireland than in England. This 
change of abode naturally made people talk. The little 
parson cousin asked (in 1706) whether Jonathan had been 
able to resist the charms of the two ladies who had 
marched from Moor Park to Dublin " with full resolution 
to engage him." Swift /was now (1701) in his thirty- 
fourth year, and Stella a singularly beautiful and attractive 
girl of twenty. The anomalous connexion was close, and 
yet most carefully guarded against scandal. In Swift's 
absence, the ladies occupied his apartments at Dublin. 
"When he and they were in the same place they took sep- 
arate lodgings. Twice, it seems, they accompanied him 
on visits to England. But Swift never saw Esther John- 
son except in presence of a third person ; and he incident- 
ally declares in 1726 — near the end of her life — that he 
had not seen her in a morning " these dozen years, except 
once or twice in a journey." The relations thus regulated 
remained unaltered for several years to come. Swift's 
duties at Laracor were not excessive. He reckons his con- 
gregation at fifteen persons, " most of them gentle and all 
simple." He gave notice, says Orrery, that he would read 
prayers every Wednesday and Friday. The congregation 
on the first Wednesday consisted of himself and his clerk, 
and Swift began the service, " Dearly beloved Roger, the 
Scripture moveth you and me," and so forth. This being 



54 SWIFT. [ghap. 

attributed to Swift is supposed to be an exquisite piece of 
facetiousness ; but we may Lope that, as Scott gives us 
reason to think, it was really one of the drifting jests that 
stuck for a time to the skirts of the famous humorist. 
What is certain is, that Swift did his best, with narrow 
means, to improve the living — rebuilt the house, laid out 
the garden, increased the glebe from one acre to twenty, 
and endowed the living with tithes bought by himself. 
He left the tithes on the remarkable condition (suggested, 
probably, by his fears of Presbyterian ascendancy) that, 
if another form of Christian religion should become the 
established faith in this kingdom, they should go to the 
poor — excluding Jews, atheists, and infidels. Swift be- 
came attached to Laracor, and the gardens which he plant- 
ed in humble imitation of Moor Park ; he made friends 
of some of the neighbours ; though he detested Trim, 
where " the people were as great rascals as the gentle- 
men ;V but Laracor was rather an occasional retreat than 
a centre of his interests. During the following years 
Swift was often at the Castle at Dublin, and passed consid- 
erable periods in London, leaving a curate in charge of the 
minute congregation at Laracor. 

He kept upon friendly terms with successive Viceroys. 
He had, as we have seen, extorted a partial concession of 
his claims from Lord Berkeley. For Lord Berkeley, if we 
may argue from a very gross lampoon, he can have felt 
nothing but contempt. But he Bad a high respect for 
Lady Berkeley; and one of the daughters, afterwards 
Lady Betty Germaine, a very sensible and kindly woman, 
retained his friendship through life, and in letters written 
long afterwards refers with evident fondness to the old 
days of familiarity. He was intimate, again, with the 
family of the Duke of Ormond, who became Lord Lieu- 



it.] LARACOR AND LOXDOX. 55 

tenant in 1703, and, again, was the close friend of one of 
the daughters. He was deeply grieved by her death a 
few years later, soon after her marriage to Lord Ashburn- 
ham. " I hate life," he says characteristically, " when I 
think it exposed to such accidents; and to see so many 
thousand wretches burdening the earth when such as her 
die, makes me think God did never intend life for a bless- 
ing." "When Lord Pembroke succeeded Ormond, Swift 
still continued chaplain, and carried on a queer commerce 
of punning with Pembroke. It is the first indication of 
a habit which lasted, as we shall see, through life. One 
might be tempted to say, were it not for the conclusive 
evidence to the contrary, that this love of the most mechan- 
ical variety of facetiousness implied an absence of an}' 
true sense of humour. Swift, indeed, was giving proofs 
that he possessed a full share of that ambiguous talent. 
It would be difficult to find a more perfect performance of 
its kind than the poem by which he amused the Berkeley 
family in 1700. It is the Petition of Mrs. Frances Har- 
ris, a chambermaid, who had lost her purse, and whose 
peculiar style of language, as well as the unsympathetic 
comments of her various fellow -servants, are preserved 
with extraordinary felicity in a peculiar doggerel invented 
for the purpose by Swift. One fancies that the famous 
Mrs. Harris of Mrs. Gamp's reminiscences was a phantasmal 
descendant of Swift's heroine. He lays bare the workings 
of the menial intellect with the clearness of a master. 

Neither Laracor nor Dublin could keep Swift from 
London. 1 During the ten years succeeding 1700 he must 

1 He was in England from April to September in 1701, from April 
to November in 1702, from Xovember, 1703, till May, 1704, for an un- 
certain part of 1705, and again for over fifteen months from the end 
of 1707 till the beginning f 1709. 



56 SWIFT. [chap. 

have passed over four in England. In the last period 
mentioned he was acting as an agent for the Church of 
Ireland. In the others he was attracted by pleasure or 
ambition. He had already many introductions to Lon- 
don society, through Temple, through the Irish Viceroys, 
and through Congreve, the most famous of then living 
wits. 

A successful pamphlet, to be presently mentioned, help- 
ed his rise to fame. London society was easy of access 
for a man of Swift's qualities. The divisions of rank were 
doubtless more strongly marked than now. Yet society 
was relatively so small, and concentrated in so small a 
space, that admission into the upper circle meant an easy 
introduction to every one worth knowing. Any notice- 
able person became, as it were, member of a club which 
had a tacit existence, though there was no single place of 
meeting or recognized organization. Swift soon became 
known at the coffee-houses, which have been superseded 
by the clubs of modern times. At one time, according to 
a story vague as to dates, he got the name of the " mad 
parson " from Addison and others, by his habit of taking 
half-an-hour's smart walk to and fro in the coffee-house, 
and then departing in silence, At last he abruptly ac- 
costed a stranger from the country : " Pray, sir, do you 
remember any good weather in the world?" "Yes, sir," 
was the reply, " I thank God I remember a great deal of 
good weather in ray time." " That," said Swift, " is more 
than I can say. I never remember any weather that was 
not too hot or too cold, or too wet or too dry ; but, how- 
ever God Almighty contrives it, at the end of the year 'tis 
all very well ;" with which sentiment he vanished. What- 
ever his introduction, Swift would soon make himself felt. 
The Tale of a Tub appeared — with a very complimentary 



it.J LARACOR AND LONDON. 57 

dedication to Somers — in 1704, and revealed powers be- 
yond the rivalry of any living author. 

In the year 1705 Swift became intimate with Addison, 
who wrote, in a copy of his Travels in Italy : " To Jona- 
than Sivift, the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, 
and the greatest genius of his age, this work is presented by 
his most humble servant the author" Though the word 
"genius" had scarcely its present strength of meaning, 
the phrase certainly implies that Addison knew Swift's 
authorship of the Tale, and with all his decorum was not 
repelled by its audacious satire. The pair formed a close 
friendship, which is honourable to both. For it proves 
that if Swift was imperious, and Addison a little too fond 
of the adulation of " wits and Templars," each could enjoy 
the society of an intellectual equal. They met, we may 
fancy, like absolute kings, accustomed to the incense of 
courtiers, and not inaccessible to its charms ; and yet glad 
at times to throw aside state and associate with each other 
without jealousy. Addison, we know, was most charming 
when talking to a single companion, and Delany repeats 
Swift's statement that, often as they spent their evenings 
together, they never wished for a third. Steele, for a time, 
was joined in what Swift calls a triumvirate; and though 
political strife led to a complete breach with Steele and 
a temporary eclipse of familiarity with Addison, it never 
diminished Swift's affection for his great rival. "That 
man," he said once, " has virtue enough to give reputation 
to an age," and the phrase expresses his settled opinion. 
Swift, however, had a low opinion of the society of the 
average " wit." " The worst conversation I ever heard in 
my life," he says, "was that at "Will's coffee-house, where 
the wits (as they were called) used formerly to assemble ;" 
and he speaks with a contempt recalling Pope's satire 



58 SWIFT. [chap. 

upon the " little senate " of the absurd self-importance and 
the foolish adulation of the students and Templars who 
listened to these oracles. Others have suspected that many 
famous coteries of which literary people are accustomed 
to speak with unction probably fell as far short in reality 
of their traditional pleasantness. Swift's friendship with 
Addison was partly due, w r e may fancy, to difference in 
temper and talent, which fitted each to be the complement 
of the other. A curious proof of the mutual good-will is 
given by the history of Swift's Baucis and Philemon. It 
is a humorous and agreeable enough travesty of Ovid; a 
bit of good-humoured pleasantry, which we may take as it 
was intended. The performance was in the spirit of the 
time; and if Swift had not the lightness of touch of his 
contemporaries, Prior, Gay, Parnell, and Pope, he perhaps 
makes up for it by greater force and directness. But the 
piece is mainly remarkable because, as he tells us, Addison 
made him " blot out four score lines, add four score, and 
alter four score," though the whole consisted of only 178 
verses. 1 Swift showed a complete absence of the ordinary 
touchiness of authors. His indifference to literary fame as 
to its pecuniary rewards was conspicuous. He was too 
proud, as he truly said, to be vain. His sense of dignity 
restrained him from petty sensibility. When a clergyman 
regretted some emendations which had been hastily sug- 
gested by himself and accepted by Swift, Swift replied 
that it mattered little, and that he would not give grounds, 
by adhering to his own opinion, for an imputation of van- 
ity. If Swift was egotistical, there was nothing petty even 
in his egotism. 

1 Mr. Forster found the original MS., and gives us the exact num- 
bers: 90 omitted, 44 added, 22 altered. The whole was 178 lines 
after the omissions. 



iv.] LARACOR AND LONDON. 59 

A piece of facetiousness started by Swift in the last 
of his visits to London has become famous. A cobbler 
called Partridge had set np as an astrologer, and published 
predictions in the style of ZadkieVs Almanac. Swift 
amused himself in the beginning of 1708 by publishing 
a rival prediction under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff. 
Bickerstaff professed that he would give verifiable and 
definite predictions, instead of the vague oracular utterances 
of his rival. The first of these predictions announced the 
approaching death, at 11 p.m., on March 29, of Partridge 
himself. Directly after that day appeared a letter "to 
a person of honour," announcing the fulfilment of the 
prediction by the death of Partridge w 7 ithin four hours of 
the date assigned. Partridge took up the matter serious- 
ly, and indignantly declared himself, in a new almanac, to 
be alive. Bickerstaff retorted in a humorous Vindication, 
arguing that Partridge was really dead; that his con- 
tinuing to write almanacs w r as no proof to the contrary, 
and so forth. All the wits, great and small, took part in 
the joke: the Portuguese Inquisition, so it is said, w T ere 
sufficiently taken in to condemn Bickerstaff to the flames ; 
and Steele, who started the Tatler whilst the joke was afoot, 
adopted the name of Bickerstaff for the imaginary author. 
Dutiful biographers agree to admire this as a wonderful 
piece of fun. The joke does not strike me, I will confess, 
as of very exquisite flavour ; but it is a curious illustration 
of a peculiarity to which Swift owed some of his power, 
and which seems to have suggested many of the mythical 
anecdotes about him. His humour very easily took the 
form of practical joking. In those days the mutual un- 
derstanding of the little clique of wits made it easy to 
get a hoax taken up by the whole body. They joined 
to persecute poor Partridge, as the undergraduates at a 



60 SWIFT. [chap. 

modern college might join to tease some obnoxious 
tradesman. Swift's peculiar irony fitted him to take 
the lead ; for it implied a singular pleasure in realizing 
the minute consequences of some given hypothesis, and 
working out in detail some grotesque or striking theory. 
The love of practical jokes, which seems to have accom- 
panied him through life, is one of the less edifying mani- 
festations of the tendency. It seems as if he could not 
quite enjoy a jest till it w x as translated into actual tangible 
fact. The fancy does not suffice him till it is realized. 
If the story about " dearly beloved Roger " be true, it is 
a case in point. Sydney Smith would have been content 
with suggesting that such a thing might be done. Swift 
was not satisfied till he had done it. And even if it be 
not true, it has been accepted because it is like the truth. 
We could almost fancy that if Swift had thought of 
Charles Lamb's famous quibble about walking on an 
empty stomach (" on whose empty stomach ?") he would 
have liked to carry it out by an actual promenade on real 
human flesh and blood. 

Swift became intimate with Irish Viceroys, and with 
the most famous wits and statesmen of London. But 
he received none of the good things bestowed so freely 
upon contemporary men of letters. In 1705 Addison, 
his intimate friend, and his junior by five years, had 
sprung from a garret to a comfortable office. Other men 
passed Swift in the race. He notes significantly, in 1708, 
that " a young fellow," a friend of his, had just received 
a sinecure of 400/. a year, as an addition to another of 
300/. Towards the end of 1704 he had already com- 
plained that he got " nothing but the good words and 
wishes of a decayed ministry, whose lives and mine will 
probably wear out before they can serve either my little 



iv.] LARACOR AND LONDON. 61 

hopes, or their own ambition." Swift still remained in 
his own district, "a hedge-parson," flattered, caressed, and 
neglected. And yet he held, 1 that it w T as easier to provide 
for ten men in the Church than for one in a civil em- 
ployment. To understand his claims, and the modes by 
w 7 hich he used to enforce them, we must advert briefly to 
the state of English politics. A clear apprehension of 
Swift's relation to the ministers of the day is essential to 
any satisfactory estimate of his career. 

The reign of Queen Anne was a period of violent party 
spirit. At the end of 1703 Swift humorously declares 
that even the cats and dogs w T ere infected with the Whip* 
and Tory animosity. The " very ladies " w r ere divided into 
High Church and Low, and, " out of zeal for religion, had 
hardly time to say their prayers." The gentle satire of 
Addison and Steele, in the Spectator, confirms Swift's 
contemporary lamentations as to the baneful effects of 
party zeal upon private friendship. And yet it has been 
often said that the party issues were hopelessly confound- 
ed. Lord Stanhope argues — and he is only repeating 
what Swift frequently said — that Whigs and Tories had 
exchanged principles. 2 In later years Swift constantly 
asserted that he attacked the Whigs in defence of the 
true Whig faith. He belonged, indeed, to a party almost 
limited to himself: for he avow T ed himself to be the 
anomalous hybrid, a High-church Whig. We, must there- 
fore, inquire a little further into the true meaning of the 
accepted shibboleths. 

Swift had come from Ireland saturated with the preju- 

1 See letter to Peterborough, May 6, 1711. 

2 In most of their principles the two parties seem to have shifted 
opinions since their institution in the reign of Charles II. — Examiner, 
No. 43, May 31, 1711. 



62 SWIFT. [chap. 

dices of his caste. The highest Tory in Ireland, as he 
told William, would make a tolerable Whig in Eng- 
land. For the English colonists in Ireland the expul- 
sion of James was a condition, not of party success but 
of existence. Swift, whose personal and family inter- 
ests were identified with those of the English in Ire- 
land, could repudiate James with his whole heart, and 
heartily accepted the Revolution ; he was, therefore, a 
Whig, so far as attachment to "Revolution principles" 
was the distinctive badge of Whiggism. Swift despised 
James, and he hated Popery from first to last. Contempt 
and hatred with him were never equivocal, and in this 
case they sprang as much from his energetic sense as 
from his early prejudices. Jacobitism was becoming a 
sham, and therefore offensive to men of insight into facts. 
Its ghost walked the earth for some time longer, and at 
times aped reality ; but it meant mere sentimentalism or 
vague discontent. Swift, when asked to explain its per- 
sistence, said that when he was in pain and lying on his 
right side, he naturally turned to his left, though he might 
have no prospect of benefit from the change. 1 The country 
squire, who drank healths to the king over the water, was 
tired of the Georges, and shared the fears of the typical 
AVestern, that his lands were in danger of being sent to 
Hanover. The Stuarts had been in exile long enough to 
win the love of some of their subjects. Sufficient time 
had elapsed to erase from short memories the true cause of 
their fall. Squires and parsons did not cherish less warmly 
the privileges in defence of which they had sent the last 
Stuart king about his business. Rather the privileges had be- 
come so much a matter of course that the very fear of any 
assault seemed visionary. The Jacobitism of later days 
1 Delany, p. 211. 



iy.] LAKACOR AXD LOXDOX. C3 

did not mean any discontent with Revolution principles, 
but dislike to the Revolution dynasty. The Whig, indeed, 
argued with true party logic that every Tory must be a 
Jacobite, and every Jacobite a lover of arbitrary rule. In 
truth, a man might wish to restore the Stuarts without 
wishing to restore the principles for which the Stuarts had 
been expelled : he might be a Jacobite without being a 
lover of arbitrary rule ; and still more easily might he be 
a Tory without being a Jacobite. Swift constantly asserted 
— and in a sense with perfect truth — that the revolution 
had been carried out in defence of the Church of Eng- 
land, and chiefly by attached members of the Church. To 
be a sound Churchman was, so far, to be pledged against 
the family which had assailed the Church. 

Swift's Whiggism would naturally be strengthened by 
his personal relation with Temple, and with various Whigs 
whom he came to know through Temple. But Swift, I 
have said, was a Churchman as well as a W T hig ; as staunch 
a Churchman as Laud, and as ready, I imagine, to have 
gone to the block or to prison in defence of his Church 
as any one from the days of Laud to those of Mr. Green. 
For a time his zeal was not called into play ; the war ab- 
sorbed all interests. Marlborough and Godolphin, the 
great heads of the family clique which dominated poor 
Queen Anne, had begun as Tories and Churchmen, sup- 
ported by a Tory majority. The war had been dictated 
by a national sentiment ; but from the beginning it was 
really a Whig war : for it was a war against Louis, 
Popery, and the Pretender. And thus the great men 
who were identified with the war began slowly to edge 
over to the party whose principles were the war princi- 
ples ; who hated the Pope, the Pretender, and the King of 
France, as their ancestors had hated Philip of Spain, or as 
4 



64 SWIFT. [chap. 

their descendants hated Napoleon. The war meant alli- 
ance with the Dutch, who had been the martyrs and were 
the enthusiastic defenders of toleration and free-thought ; 
and it forced English ministers, almost in spite of them- 
selves, into the most successful piece of statesmanship of 
the century, the Union with Scotland. Now, Swift hated 
the Dutch and hated the Scotch with a vehemence that 
becomes almost ludicrous. The margin of his Burnet was 
scribbled over with execrations against the Scots. " Most 
damnable Scots," " Scots hell-hounds," " Scotch dogs," 
" cursed Scots still," " hellish Scottish dogs," are a few of 
his spontaneous flowers of speech. His prejudices are the 
prejudices of his class intensified as all passions were in- 
tensified in him. Swift regarded Scotchmen as the most 
virulent and dangerous of all Dissenters ; they were repre- 
sented to him by the Irish Presbyterians, the natural 
rivals of his Church. He reviled the Union, because it 
implied the recognition by the State of a sect which re- 
garded the Church of England as little better than a 
manifestation of Antichrist. And, in this sense, Swift's 
sympathies were with the Tories. For, in truth, the real 
contrast between Whigs and Tories, in respect of which 
there is a perfect continuity of principle, depended upon the 
fact that the Whigs reflected the sentiments of the middle 
classes, the " monied men " and the Dissenters ; whilst the 
Tories reflected the sentiments of the land and the Church. 
Each party might occasionally adopt the commonplaces or 
accept the measures generally associated with its antago- 
nists ; but at bottom the distinction was between squire 
and parson on one side, tradesman and banker on the 
other. 

The domestic politics of the reign of Anne turned upon 
this difference. The history is a history of the gradual 



iv.] LAttACOR AND LONDON. 65 

shifting of government to the Whig side, and the grow- 
ing alienation of the clergy and squires, accelerated by a 
system which caused the fiscal burden of the war to fall 
chiefly upon the land. Bearing this in mind, Swift's 
conduct is perfectly intelligible. His first plunge into 
politics w r as in 1 701. Poor King William was in the 
thick of the perplexities caused by the mysterious per- 
verseness of English politicians. The King's ministers, 
supported by the House of Lords, had lost the command 
of the House of Commons. It had not yet come to be 
understood that the Cabinet was to be a mere committee 
of the House of Commons. The personal wishes of the 
sovereign, and the alliances and jealousies of great court- 
iers, were still highly important factors in the political 
situation ; as, indeed, both the composition and the sub- 
sequent behaviour of the Commons could be controlled to 
a considerable extent by legitimate and other influences 
of the Crown. The Commons, unable to make their 
will obeyed, proceeded to impeach Somers and other 
ministers. A bitter struggle took place between the 
two Houses, which was suspended by the summer re- 
cess. At this crisis Swift published his Discourse on the 
Dissensions in Athens and Home. The abstract political 
argument is as good or as bad as nine hundred and 
ninety-nine out of a thousand political treatises — that is 
to say, a repetition of familiar commonplaces; and the 
mode of applying precedents from ancient politics would 
now strike us as pedantic. The pamphlet, however, is 
dignified and well-written, and the application to the im- 
mediate difficulty is pointed. His argument is, briefly, 
that the House of Commons is showing a factious, 
tyrannical temper, identical in its nature with that of a 
single tyrant and as dangerous in its consequences; that 



66 SWIFT. [chap. 

it has, therefore, ceased to reflect the opinions of its con- 
stituents, and has endangered the sacred balance between 
the three primary elements of our constitution, upon 
which its safe w r orking depends. 

The pamphlet was from beginning to end a remon- 
strance against the impeachments, and therefore a de- 
fence, of the Whig lords, for whom sufficiently satisfac- 
tory parallels are vaguely indicated in Pericles, Aristides, 
and so forth. It was "greedily bought;" it was attrib- 
uted to Somers and to the great Whig bishop, Burnet, 
who had to disown it for fear of an impeachment. An 
Irish bishop, it is said, called Swift a " very positive young 
man" for doubting Burnet's authorship ; whereupon Swift 
had to claim it for himself. Youthful vanity, according 
to his own account, induced him to make the admission, 
which would certainly not have been withheld by adult 
discretion. For the result was that Somers, Halifax, and 
Sunderland, three of the great Whig junto, took him up, 
often admitted him to their intimacy, and were liberal in 
promising him "the greatest preferments" should they 
come into pow r er. Before long Swift had another oppor- 
tunity which was also a temptation. The Tory House 
of Commons had passed the bill against occasional con- 
formity. Ardent partisans generally approved this bill, 
as it was clearly annoying to Dissenters. It was directed 
against the practice of qualifying for office by taking the 
sacrament according to the rites of the Church of Eng- 
land without permanently conforming. It might be fairly 
argued — as Defoe argued, though with questionable sin- 
cerity — that such a temporary compliance would be really 
injurious to Dissent. The Church would profit by such 
an exhibition of the flexibility of its opponents' principles. 
Passions were too much heated for such arguments ; and 



it.] LARACOR AXD LONDON. 67 

in the winter of 1703-04, people, says Swift, talked of 
nothing else. He was " mightily urged by some great 
people" to publish his opinion. An argument from a 
powerful writer, and a clergyman, against the bill w r ould 
be very useful to his Whig friends. But Swift's High 
Church prejudices made him hesitate. The Whig lead- 
ers assured him that nothing should induce them to vote 
against the bill if they expected its rejection to hurt the 
Church or "do kindness to the Dissenters." But it is 
precarious to argue from the professed intentions of 
statesmen to their real motives, and yet more precarious 
to argue to the consequences of their actions. Swift 
knew not what to think. He resolved to think no 
more. At last he made up his mind to write against 
the bill, but he made it up too late. The bill failed to 
pass, and Swift felt a relief in dismissing this delicate 
subject. He might still call himself a Whig, and exult 
in the growth of Whiggism. Meanwhile he persuaded 
himself that the Dissenters and their troubles were be- 
neath his notice. 

They were soon to come again to the front Swift 
came to London at the end of 1707, charged with a mis- 
sion on behalf of his Church. Queen Anne's Bounty was 
founded in 1704. The Crown restored to the Church the 
first-fruits and tenths which Henry VIII. had diverted 
from the papal into his own treasury, and appropriated 
them to the augmentation of small livings. It was pro- 
posed to get the same boon for the Church of Ireland. 
The w 7 hole sum amounted to about 1000/. a year, with a 
possibility of an additional 2000/. Swift, who had spoken 
of this to King, the Archbishop of Dublin, was now to 
act as solicitor on behalf of the Irish clergy, and hoped to 
make use of his influence with Somers and Sunderland. 



G8 SWIFT. [chap. 

The negotiation was to give him more trouble than he 
foresaw, and initiate him, before he had done with it, into 
certain secrets of cabinets and councils which he as yet 
very imperfectly appreciated. His letters to King, con- 
tinued over a long period, throw much light on his mo- 
tives. Swift was in England from November, 1707, till 
March, 1709. The year 1708 was for him, as he says, a 
year of suspense, a year of vast importance to his career, 
and marked by some characteristic utterances. He hoped 
to use his influence with Somers. Somers, though still 
out of office, was the great oracle of the Whigs, whilst 
Sunderland was already Secretary of State. In January, 
1708, the bishopric of Waterford was vacant, and Somers 
tried to obtain the see for Swift. The attempt failed, but 
the political catastrophe of the next month gave hopes 
that the influence of Somers would soon be paramount. 
Harley, the prince of wire-pulling and back-stair intrigue, 
had exploded the famous Masham plot. Though this 
project failed, it was " reckoned," says Swift, " the great- 
est piece of court skill that has been acted many years." 
Queen Anne was to take advantage of the growing aliena- 
tion of the Church party to break her bondage to the 
Marlboroughs, and change her ministers. But the at- 
tempt was premature, and discomfited its devisers. liar- 
ley was turned out of office ; Marlborough and Godolphin 
came into alliance with the Whig junto; and the Queen's 
bondage seemed more complete than ever. A cabinet 
crisis in those days, however, took a long time. It was 
not till October, 1708, that the Whigs, backed by a new 
Parliament and strengthened by the victory of Oudenarde, 
were in full enjoyment of power. Somers at last became 
President of the Council and AVharton Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland. Wharton's appointment was specially significant 



iv.] LARACOR AND LONDON. G9 

for Swift. He was, as even Whigs admitted, a man of in- 
famous character, redeemed only by energy and unflinch- 
ing fidelity to his party. He was licentious and a free- 
thinker; his infidelity showed itself in the grossest out- 
rages against common decency. If he had any religious 
principle it was a preference of Presbyterians, as sharing 
his antipathy to the Church. No man could be more radi- 
cally antipathetic to Swift. Meanwhile, the success of 
the Whigs meant, in the first instance, the success of the 
men from whom Swift had promises of preferment. He 
tried to use his influence as he had proposed. In June 
he had an interview about the first-fruits with Godolphin, 
to whom he had been recommended by Somers and Sun- 
derland. Godolphin replied in vague officialisms, suggest- 
ing with studied vagueness that the Irish clergy must 
show themselves more grateful than the English. His 
meaning, as Swift thought, was that the Irish clergy 
should consent to a repeal of the Test Act, regarded by 
them and by him as the essential bulwark of the Church. 
Nothing definite, however, was said ; and meanwhile Swift, 
though he gave no signs of compliance, continued to hope 
for his own preferment. When the final triumph of the 
Whigs came he was still hoping, though with obvious 
qualms as to his position. He begged King (in Novem- 
ber, 1708) to believe in his fidelity to the Church. Offers 
might be made to him, but " no prospect of making my 
fortune shall ever prevail on me to go against what be- 
comes a man of conscience and truth, and an entire friend 
to the Established Church." He hoped that he might be 
appointed secretary to a projected embassy to Vienna, a 
position which would put him beyond the region of do- 
mestic politics. 

Meanwhile he had published certain tracts which may 



70 SWIFT. [chap. 

be taken as the manifesto of his faith at the time when 
his principles were being most severely tested. Would he 
or would he not sacrifice his Churchmanship to the inter- 
ests of the party with which he was still allied? There 
can be no doubt that by an open declaration of Whig- 
principles in Church matters — such a declaration, say, as 
w r ould have satisfied Burnet — he would have qualified 
himself for preferment, and have been in a position to 
command the fulfilment of the promises made by Somers 
and Sunderland. 

The writings in question were the Argument to prove 
the Inconvenience of Abolishing Christianity ; & Project for 
the Advancement of Religion; and the Sentiments of a 
Church of England Man. The first, as I have said, was 
meant to show that the satirical powers which had given 
offence in the Tale of a Tub could be applied without 
equivocation in defence of Christianity. The Project is 
a very forcible exposition of a text which is common 
enough in all ages — namely, that the particular age of 
the writer is one of unprecedented corruption. It shares, 
however, with Swift's other writings, the merit of down- 
right sincerity, which convinces us that the author is not 
repeating platitudes, but giving his own experience and 
speaking from conviction. His proposals for a reform, 
though he must have felt them to be chimerical, are con- 
ceived in the spirit common in the days before people had 
begun to talk about the state and the individual. He as- 
sumes throughout that a vigorous action of the court and 
the government will reform the nation. He does not con- 
template the now commonplace objection that such a revival 
of the Puritanical system might simply stimulate hypocrisy. 
He expressly declares that religion may be brought into 
fashion " by the power of the administration," and assumes 



it.] LARACOR AXD LOXDOX. 71 

that to bring religion into fashion is the same thing as to 
make men religious. This view — suitable enough to Swift's 
imperious temper — was also the general assumption of the 
time. A suggestion thrown out in his pamphlet is gen- 
erally said to have led to the scheme soon afterwards car- 
ried out under Harley's administration for building fifty 
new churches in London. A more personal touch is Swift's 
complaint that the clergy sacrifice their influence by " se- 
questering themselves" too much, and forming a separate 
caste. This reads a little like an implied defence of him- 
self for frequenting London coffee-houses, when cavillers 
might have argued that he should be at Laracor. But, like 
all Swift's utterances, it covered a settled principle. I have 
already noticed this peculiarity, which he shows elsewhere 
when describing himself as 

"A clergyman of special note 
For shunning others of his coat ; 
Which made his brethren of the gown 
Take care betimes to run him down." 

The Sentiments of a Church of England Man is more 
significant. It is a summary of his unvarying creed. In 
politics he is a good Whig. He interprets the theory of 
passive obedience as meaning obedience to the " legislative 
power ;" not therefore to the King specially ; and he delib- 
erately accepts the Revolution on the plain ground of the 
salus populi. His leading maxim is that the " administra- 
tion cannot be placed in too few hands nor the Legislature 
in too many." But this political liberality is associated 
with unhesitating Churchmanship. Sects are mischievous : 
to say that they are mischievous is to say that they ought 
to be checked in their beginning ; where they exist they 
should be tolerated, but not to the injury of the Church. 
4* 



72 SWIFT. [chap. 

And hence he reaches his leading principle that a " gov- 
ernment cannot give them (sects) too much ease, nor trust 
them with too little power." Such doctrines clearly and 
tersely laid down were little to the taste of the Whigs, who 
were more anxious than ever to conciliate the Dissenters. 
But it was not till the end of the year that Swift applied 
his abstract theory to a special case. There had been 
various symptoms of a disposition to relax the Test Acts 
in Ireland. The appointment of Wharton to be Lord 
Lieutenant was enough to alarm Swift, even though his 
friend Addison was to be Wharton's secretary. In Decern- 
ber, 1708, he published a pamphlet, ostensibly a letter from 
a member of the Irish to a member of the English House 
of Commons, in which the necessity of keeping up the 
Test was vigorously enforced. It is the first of Swift's 
political writings in which we see his true power. In 
those just noticed he is forced to take an impartial tone. 
He is trying to reconcile himself to his alliance with the 
Whigs, or to reconcile the Whigs to their protection of 
himself. He speaks as a moderator, and poses as the dig- 
nified moralist above all party feeling. But in this letter 
he throws the reins upon his humour, and strikes his op- 
ponents full in the face. From his own point of view the 
pamphlet is admirable. He quotes Cowley's verse : 

" Forbid it, Heaven, my life should be 
"Weighed by thy least conveniency." 

The Irish, by which he means the English, and the Eng- 
lish exclusively of the Scotch, in Ireland, represent this 
enthusiastic lover, and arc called upon to sacrifice them- 
selves to the political conveniency of the Whig party. 
Swift expresses his usual wrath -against the Scots, who are 
eating up the land, boasts of the loyalty of the Irish 



iv.] LARACOR AND LONDON. 73 

Church, and taunts the Presbyterians with their tyranny 
in former days. Am I to be forced, he asks, " to keep 
my chaplain disguised like my butler, and steal to prayers 
in a back room, as my grandfather used in those times 
when the Church of England was malignant?" Is not this 
a ripping up of old quarrels ? Ought not all Protestants 
to unite against Papists? No, the enemy is the same as 
ever. " It is agreed among naturalists that a lion is a 
larger, a stronger, and more dangerous enemy than a cat ; 
yet if a man were to have his choice, either a lion at his 
foot fast bound with three or four chains, his teeth drawn 
out, and his claws pared to the quick, or an angry cat in 
full liberty at his throat, he would take no long time to 
determine." The bound lion means the Catholic natives, 
whom Swift declares to be as "inconsiderable as the 
women and children." 

Meanwhile the long first-fruits negotiation w T as languid- 
ly proceeding. At last it seemed to be achieved. Lord 
Pembroke, the outgoing Lord Lieutenant, sent Swift 
word that the grant had been made. Swift reported his 
success to Archbishop King with a very pardonable touch 
of complacency at his " very little " merit in the matter. 
But a bitter disappointment followed. The promise made 
had never been fulfilled. In March, 1709, Swift had again 
to write to the Archbishop, recounting his failure, his at- 
tempt to remonstrate with Wharton, the new Lord Lieu- 
tenant, and the too certain collapse of the w T hole business. 
The failure was complete ; the promised boon was not 
granted, and Swift's chance of a bishopric had pretty w r ell 
vanished. Halifax, the great Whig Maecenas, and the Bufo 
of Pope, wrote to him in his retirement at Dublin, declar- 
ing that he had " entered into a confederacy with Mr. 
Addison "to urge Swift's claims upon Government, and 



U SWIFT. [chap. 

speaking of the declining health of South, then a preben- 
dary of Westminster. Swift endorsed this : " I lock up this 
letter as a true original of courtiers and court promises," 
and wrote in a volume he had begged from the same per- 
son that it was the only favour " he ever received from 
him or his party." In the last months of his stay he had 
suffered cruelly from his old giddiness, and he went to 
Ireland, after a visit to his mother in Leicester, in suffi- 
ciently gloomy mood; retired to Laracor, and avoided 
any intercourse with the authorities at the Castle, except- 
ing always Addison. 

To this it is necessary to add one remark. Swift's 
version of the story is substantially that which I have 
given, and it is everywhere confirmed by contemporary 
letters. It shows that he separated from the Whig party 
when at the height of their power, and separated because he 
thought them opposed to the Church principles which he 
advocated from first to last. It is most unjust, therefore, 
to speak of Swift as a deserter from the Whigs, because 
he afterwards joined the Church party, which shared all his 
strongest prejudices. I am so far from seeing any ground 
for such a charge, that I believe that few men have ever 
adhered more strictly to the principles with which they 
have started. But such charges have generally an element 
of truth ; and it is easy here to point out what w T as the 
really weak point in Swift's position. 

Swift's writings, with one or two trifling exceptions, 
were originally anonymous. As they were very apt to 
produce warrants for the apprehension of publisher and 
author, the precaution w T as natural enough in later years. 
The mask was often merely ostensible ; a sufficient pro- 
tection against legal prosecution, but in reality covering 
an open secret. When in the Sentiments of a Church of 



it.] LARACOR AXD LOXDOX. 75 

England Man Swift professes to conceal his name care- 
full)', it may be doubted how far this is to be taken se- 
riously. But lie went much further in the letter on the 
Test Act. He inserted a passage intended really to blind 
his adversaries by a suggestion that Dr. Swift was likely 
to write in favour of abolishing the Test; and he even 
complains to King of the unfairness of this treatment. 
His assault, therefore, upon the supposed Whig policy 
was clandestine. This may possibly be justified ; he 
might even urge that he was still a Whig, and was warn- 
ing ministers against measures which they had not yet 
adopted, and from which, as he thinks, they may still be 
deterred by an alteration of the real Irish feeling. 1 lie 
complained afterwards that he was ruined — that is, as to 
his chances of preferment from the party — by the suspi- 
cion of his authorship of this tract. That is to say, he was 
" ruined n by the discovery of his true sentiments. This 
is to admit that he was still ready to accept preferment 
from the men whose supposed policy he was bitterly at- 
tacking, and that he resented their alienation as a grievance. 
The resentment, indeed, was most bitter and pertinacious. 
He turned savagely upon his old friends because they would 
not make him a bishop. The answer from their point of 
view was conclusive. He had made a bitter and covert 
attack, and he could not at once claim a merit from 
Churchmen for defending the Church against the Whigs, 
and revile the Whigs for not rewarding him. But incon- 
sistency of this kind is characteristic of Swift. He thought 
the Whigs scoundrels for not patronizing him, and not 
the less scoundrels because their conduct was consistent 
with their own scoundrelly principles. People who differ 
from me must be wicked, argued this consistent egotist, 
1 Letter to King, January 6, 1709. 



76 SWIFT. [chap. iv. 

and their refusal to reward me is only an additional wick- 
edness. The case appeared to him as though he had been 
a Nathan sternly warning a David of his sins, and for that 
reason deprived of honour. David could not have urged 
his sinful desires as an excuse for ill-treatment of Nathan. 
And Swift was inclined to class indifference to the welfare 
of the Church as a sin even in an avowed Whig. Yet he 
had to ordinary minds forfeited any right to make non- 
fulfilment a grievance, when he ought to have regarded 
performance as a disgrace. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 

In the autumn of 1710 Swift was approaching the end of 
his forty-third year. A man may well feel at forty-two 
that it is high time that a post should have been assigned 
to him. Should an opportunity be then, and not till 
then, put in his way, he feels that he is throwing for 
heavy stakes; and that failure, if failure should follow, 
would be irretrievable. Swift had been longing vainly 
for an opening. In the remarkable letter (of April, 1722) 
from which I have quoted the anecdote of the lost fish, he 
says that " all my endeavours from a boy to distinguish 
myself were only for want of a great title and fortune, that 
I might be used like a lord by those who have an opinion 
of my parts ; whether right or wrong is no great matter ; 
and so the reputation of wit or great learning does the 
office of a blue riband or of a coach and six horses." 
The phrase betrays Swift's scornful self -mockery ; that 
inverted hypocrisy which led him to call his motives by 
their worst names, and to disavow what he might have 
been sorry to see denied by others. But, like all that 
Swift says of himself, it also expresses a genuine convic- 
tion. Swift was ambitious, and his ambition meant an 
absolute need of imposing his will upon otners. He was 
a man born to rule ; not to affect thought, but to control 



IS SWIFT. [chap. 

conduct. He was, therefore, unable to find full occupa- 
tion, though he might seek occasional distraction, in liter- 
ary pursuits. Archbishop King, who had a strange knack 
of irritating his correspondent — not, it seems, without in- 
tention — annoyed Swift intensely in 1711 by advising 
him (most superfluously) to get preferment, and with that 
view to write a serious treatise upon some theological 
question. Swift, who was in the thick of his great 
political struggle, answered that it was absurd to ask a 
man floating at sea what he meant to do when he got 
ashore. " Let him get there first and rest and dry him- 
self, and then look about him." To find firm footing 
amidst the welter of political intrigues was Swift's first 
object. Once landed in a deanery he might begin to think 
about writing ; but he never attempted, like many men in 
his position, to win preferment through literary achieve- 
ments. To a man of such a temperament his career must 
so far have been cruelly vexatious. We are generally 
forced to judge of a man's life by a few leading incidents ; 
and we may be disposed to infer too hastily that the 
passions roused on those critical occasions coloured the 
whole tenor of every-day existence. Doubtless Swift w T as 
not always fretting over fruitless prospects. He was 
often eating his dinner in peace and quiet, and even 
amusing himself with watching the Moor Park rooks or 
the Laracor trout. Yet it is true that, so far as a man's 
happiness depends upon the consciousness of a satisfactory 
employment of his faculties, whether with a view to glory 
or solid comfort, Swift had abundant causes of discontent. 
The "conjured spirit" was still weaving ropes of sand. 
For ten years he had been dependent upon Temple, and 
his struggles to get upon his own legs had been fruitless. 
On Temple's death he managed when past thirty to wring 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 19 

from fortune a position of bare independence, not of 
satisfying activity — lie had not gained a fulcrum from 
which to move the world — but only a bare starting-point 
whence he might continue to work. The promises from 
great men had come to nothing. He might perhaps have 
realized them, could he have consented to be faithless to 
his dearest convictions ; the consciousness that he had so 
far sacrificed his position to his principles gave him no 
comfort, though it nourished his pride. His enforced 
reticence produced an irritation against the ministers 
whom it had been intended to conciliate, which deepened 
into bitter resentment for their neglect. The year and a 
half passed in Ireland during 1709-10 was a period in 
which his day-dreams must have had a background of dis- 
appointed hopes. "I stayed above half the time," he 
says, " in one scurvy acre of ground, and I always left it 
with regret." He shut himself up at Laracor, and nour- 
ished a growing indignation against the party represented 
by Wharton. 

Yet events were moving rapidly in England, and open- 
ing a new path for his ambition. The Whigs were in 
full possession of power, though at the price of a growing 
alienation of all who were weary of a never-ending war, 
or hostile to the Whig policy in Church and State. The 
leaders, though warned by Somers, fancied that they would 
strengthen their position by attacking the defeated enemy. 
The prosecution of Sacheverell in the winter of 1709-10, 
if not directed by personal spite, w T as meant to intimidate 
the high-flying Tories. It enabled the Whig leaders to 
indulge in a vast quantity of admirable constitutional 
rhetoric ; but it supplied the High Church party with a 
martyr and a cry, and gave the needed impetus to the 
growing discontent. The Queen took heart to revolt 



80 SWIFT. [chap. 

against the Marlboroughs ; the "Whig Ministry were turn- 
ed out of office ; Harley became Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer in August; and the Parliament was dissolved in 
September, 1710, to be replaced in November by one in 
which the Tories had an overwhelming majority. 

We are left to guess at the feelings with which Swift 
contemplated these changes. Their effect upon his per- 
sonal prospects was still problematical. In spite of his 
wrathful retirement, there was no open breach between 
him and the Whigs. He had no personal relations with 
the new possessors of power. Harley and St. John, the 
two chiefs, were unknown to him. And, according to his 
own statement, he started for England once more with 
great reluctance in order again to take up the w T eary first- 
fruits negociation. Wharton, whose hostility had inter- 
cepted the proposed bounty, went with his party, and was 
succeeded by the High Church Duke of Ormond. The 
political aspects were propitious for a renewed application, 
and Swift's previous employment pointed him out as the 
most desirable agent. 

And now Swift suddenly comes into full light. For 
two or three years w T e can trace his movements day by 
day; follow the development of his hopes and fears; 
and see him more clearly than he could be seen by al- 
most any of his contemporaries. The famous Journal to 
Stella — a series of letters written to Esther Johnson and 
Mrs. Dingley, from September, 1710, till April, 1713 — is 
the main and central source of information. Before tell- 
ing the story a word or two may be said of the nature of 
this document, one of the most interesting that ever 
threw light upon the history of a man of genius. The 
Journal is one of the very few that were clearly written 
without the faintest thought of publication. There is no 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 81 

indication of any such intention in the Journal to Stella. 
It never occurred to Swift that it could ever be seen by 
any but the persons primarily interested. The journal 
rather shuns politics; they will not interest his corre- 
spondent, and he is afraid of the post-office clerks — then 
and long afterwards often employed as spies. Inter- 
views with ministers have scarcely more prominence than 
the petty incidents of his daily life. We are told that he 
discussed business, but the discussion is not reported. 
Much more is omitted which might have been of the 
highest interest. We hear of meetings with Addison ; 
not a phrase of Addison's is vouchsafed to us ; we go to 
the door of Harley or St. John ; we get no distinct vision 
of the men who w r ere the centres of all observation. Nor, 
again, are there any of those introspective passages which 
give to some journals the interest of a confession. What, 
then, is the interest of the Journal to Stella ? One 
element of strano-e and singular fascination, to be con- 
sidered hereafter, is the prattle w T ith his correspondent. 
For the rest, our interest depends in great measure upon 
the reflections with which we must ourselves clothe the 
bare skeleton of facts. In reading the Journal to Stella 
we may fancy ourselves waiting in a parliamentary lobby 
during an excited debate. One of the chief actors hurries 
out at intervals ; pours out a kind of hasty bulletin ; tells 
of some thrilling incident, or indicates some threatening 
symptom ; more frequently he seeks to relieve his anxie- 
ties by indulging in a little personal gossip, and only in- 
terjects such comments upon politics as can be compressed 
into a hasty ejaculation, often, as may be supposed, of the 
imprecatory kind. Yet he unconsciously betrays his 
hopes and fears; he is fresh from the thick of the fight, 
and we perceive that his nerves are still quivering, and 



82 SWIFT. [chap. 

that his phrases are glowing with the ardour of the strug- 
gle. Hopes and fears are long since faded, and the strug- 
gle itself is now but a war of phantoms. Yet, with the 
help of the Journal and contemporary documents, we can 
revive for the moment the decaying images, and cheat 
ourselves into the momentary persuasion that the fate of 
the world depends upon Harley's success, as we now hold 
it to depend upon Mr. Gladstone's. 

Swift reached London on September 7, 1710; the po- 
litical revolution was in full action, though Parliament 
was not yet dissolved. The Whigs were " ravished to 
see him ;" they clutched at him, he says, like drowning 
men at a twig, and the great men made him their 
" clumsy apologies." Godolphin was " short, dry, and 
morose ;" Somers tried to make explanations, which Swift 
received with studied coldness. The ever-courteous Hali- 
fax gave him dinners, and asked him to drink to the 
resurrection of the Whigs, which Swift refused unless he 
would add " to their reformation." Halifax persevered in 
his attentions, and was always entreating him to go down 
to Hampton Court; "which will cost me a guinea to his 
servants, and twelve shillings coach hire, and I will see 
him hanged first." Swift, how T ever, retained his old 
friendship with the wits of the party ; dined with Addi- 
son at his retreat in Chelsea, and sent a trifle or two to 
the Tatler. The elections began in October; Swift had 
to drive through a rabble of Westminster electors, judi- 
ciously agreeing with their sentiments to avoid dead cats 
and broken glasses ; and though Addison w 7 as elected (" I 
believe," says Swift, "if he had a mind to be chosen 
king, he would hardly be refused "), the Tories were tri- 
umphant in every direction. And, meanwhile, the Tory 
leaders were delightfully civil. 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 83 

On the 4th of October Swift was introduced to Harley, 
getting himself described (with undeniable truth) "as a 
discontented person, who was ill used for not being Whig 
enough." The poor Whigs lamentably confess, he says, 
their ill usage of him, "but I mind them not." Their 
confession came too late. Harley had received him with 
open arms, and won, not only Swift's adhesion, but his 
warm personal attachment. The fact is indisputable, 
though rather curious. Harley appears to us as a shifty 
and feeble politician, an inarticulate orator, wanting in 
principles and resolution, who made it his avowed and 
almost only rule of conduct that a politician should live 
from hand to mouth. 1 Yet his prolonged influence in 
Parliament seems to indicate some personal attraction, 
which was perceptible to his contemporaries, though rather 
puzzling to us. All Swift's panegyrics leave the secret in 
obscurity. Harley seems, indeed, to have been eminently 
respectable and decorously religious, amiable in personal 
intercourse, and able to say nothing in such a way as to 
suggest profundity instead of emptiness. His reputation 
as a party manager was immense ; and is partly justified 
by his quick recognition of Swift's extraordinary qualifi- 
cations. He had inferior scribblers in his pay, including, 
as we remember with regret, the shifty Defoe. But he 
wanted a man of genuine ability and character. Some 
months later the ministers told Swift that they had been 
afraid of none but him, and resolved to have him. 

They got him. Harley had received him " with the 
greatest kindness and respect imaginable." Three days 
later (October V) the first-fruits business is discussed, and 
Harley received the proposals as warmly as became a 
friend of the Church, besides overwhelming Swift with 
1 Swift to King, July 12, 1711. 



84 SWIFT. [chap. 

civilities. Swift is to be introduced to St. John ; to dine 
with Ilarley next Tuesday ; and, after an interview of 
four hours, the minister sets him down at St. James's 
Coffee-house in a hackney coach. " All this is odd and 
comical!" exclaims Swift; "he knew my Christian name 
very well," and, as Ave hear next day, begged Swift to come 
to him often, but not to his levee : " that was not a place 
for friends to meet." On the 10th of October, within a 
week from the first introduction, Harley promises to get 
the first-fruits business, over which the Whigs had haggled 
for years, settled by the following Sunday. Swift's exul- 
tation breaks out. On the 14th he declares that he stands 
ten times better with the new people than ever he did with 
the old, and is forty times more caressed. The triumph is 
sharpened by revenge. Nothing, he says, of the sort was 
ever compassed so soon ; " and purely done by my per- 
sonal credit with Mr. Ilarley, who is so excessively obliging 
that I know not what to make of it, unless to show the 
rascals of the other side that they used a man unworthily 
who deserved better." A passage on November 8 sums up 
his sentiments. " Why," he says in answer to something 
from Stella, " should the Whigs think I came from Ire- 
land to leave them ? Sure my journey was no secret! I 
protest sincerely, I did all I could to hinder it, as the Dean 
can tell you, though now I do not repent it. But who the 
devil cares what they think ? Am I under obligations in 
the least to any of them all ? Rot them for ungrateful dogs ; 
I will make them repent their usage before I leave this 
place." The thirst for vengeance may not be edifying ; 
the political zeal was clearly not of the purest; but, in 
truth, Swift's party prejudices and his personal resent- 
ments arc fused into indissoluble unity. Hatred of Whig 
principles and resentment of Whig " ill usage" of himself, 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 85 

are one and the same thing. Meanwhile, Swift was able (on 
November 4) to announce his triumph to the Archbishop. 
He was greatly annoyed by an incident of which he must 
also have seen the humorous side. The Irish bishops had 
bethought themselves after Swift's departure that he w T as 
too much of a "Whig to be an effective solicitor. They 
proposed, therefore, to take the matter out of his hands 
and apply to Ormond, the new Lord Lieutenant. Swift 
replied indignantly ; the thing was done, however, and he 
took care to let it be known that the w r hole credit belonged 
to Harley, and of course, in a subordinate sense, to himself. 
Official formalities w 7 cre protracted for months longer, and 
formed one excuse for Swift's continued absence from Ire- 
land ; but we need not trouble ourselves with the matter 
further. 

Swift's unprecedented leap into favour meant more than 
a temporary success. The intimacy with Harley and with 
St. John rapidly developed. Within a few months Swift 
had forced his w 7 ay into the very innermost circle of 
official authority. A notable quarrel seems to have given 
the final impulse to his career. In February, 1711, Har- 
ley offered him a fifty-pound note. This was virtually 
to treat him as a hireling instead of an ally. Swift re- 
sented the offer as an intolerable affront. He refused to 
be reconciled without ample apology and after long en- 
treaties. His pride was not appeased for ten days, when 
the reconciliation was sealed by an invitation from Harley 
to a Saturday dinner. 1 On Saturdays the Lord Keeper 
(Harcourt) and the Secretary of State (St. John) dined 

1 These dinners, it may be noticed, seem to have been held on 
Thursdays when Harley had to attend the court at Windsor. This 
may lead to some confusion i with the Brothers' Club, which met on 
Thursdays during the parliamentary session. 



86 SWIFT. [chap. 

alone with Harley ; "and at last," says Swift, in reporting 
the event, " they have consented to let me among them on 
that day." He goes next day, and already chides Lord 
Rivers for presuming to intrude into the sacred circle. 
" They call me nothing but Jonathan," he adds ; " and I 
said I believed they would leave me Jonathan, as they 
found me." These dinners were continued, though they 
became less select. Harley called Saturday his " whip- 
ping-day," and Swift was the heartiest wielder of the 
lash. From the same February, Swift began to dine 
regularly with St. John every Sunday; and we may note 
it as some indication of the causes of his later preference 
of Harley, that on one occasion he has to leave St. John 
early. The company, he says, were in constraint, because 
he would suffer no man to swear or talk indecently in his 
presence. 

Swift had thus conquered the ministry at a blow. What 
services did he render in exchange? His extraordinary in- 
fluence seems to have been due in a measure to sheer force 
of personal ascendency. No man could come into contact 
with Swift without feeling that magnetic influence. But 
he was also doing a more tangible service. In thus ad- 
mitting Swift to their intimacy Harley and St. John were, 
in fact, paying homage to the rising power of the pen. 
Political writers had hitherto been hirelings, and often lit- 
tle better than spies. No preceding, and, we may add, no 
succeeding, writer ever achieved such a position by such 
means. The press has become more powerful as a whole, 
but no particular representative of the press has made such 
a leap into power. Swift came at the time when the in- 
fluence of political writing was already great, and w T hen 
the personal favour of a prominent minister could still 
work miracles. Harley made him a favourite of the old 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 87 

stamp, to reward Lis supremacy in the use of the new 
weapon. 

Swift had begun in October by avenging himself upon 
Godolpkin's coldness, in a copy of Hudibrastic verses about 
the virtues of Sid Hamet the magician's rod — that is, the 
Treasurer's staff of office — which had a w r onderful success. 
He fell savagely upon the hated Wharton not long after, 
in what he calls " a damned libellous pamphlet," of which 
2000 copies were sold in two days. Libellous, indeed, is 
a faint epithet to describe a production which, if its state- 
ments be true, proves that Wharton deserved to be hunted 
from society. Charges of lying, treachery, atheism, Pres- 
byterianism, debauchery, indecency, shameless indifference 
to his own reputation and his wife's, the vilest corruption 
and tyranny in his government, are piled upon his victim 
as thickly as they will stand. Swift does not expect to 
sting Wharton. " I neither love nor hate him," he says. 
" If I see him after this is published he will tell me ' that 
he is damnably mauled ;' and then, with the easiest transi- 
tion in the world, ask about the weather or the time of 
day." Wharton might possibly think that abuse of this 
kind might almost defeat itself by its own virulence. But 
Swift had already begun writings of a more statesmanlike 
and effective kind. 

A paper war was already raging when Swift came to 
London. The Examiner had been started by St. John, 
with the help of Atterbury, Prior, and others ; and op- 
posed for a short time by Addison, in the Whig Exami- 
ner. Harley, after granting the first-fruits, had told Swift 
that the great want of the ministry was "some good pen," 
to keep up the spirits of the party. The Examiner, how- 
ever, was in need of a firmer and more regular manager ; 
and Swift took it in hand, his first weekly article appear- 
5 



88 SWIFT. [chap. 

ing November 2, 1710, his last on Jane 14, 1711. His 
Examiners achieved an immediate and unprecedented suc- 
cess. And yet, to say the truth, a modern reader is apt to 
find them decidedly heavy. No one, indeed, can fail to 
perceive the masculine sense, the terseness and precision 
of the utterance. And yet many writings which produced 
less effect are far more readable now. The explanation is 
simple, and applies to most of Swift's political writings. 
They are all rather acts than words. They are blows 
struck in a party contest, and their merit is to be gauged 
by their effect. Swift cares nothing for eloquence, or log- 
ic, or invective — and little, it must be added, for veracity — 
so long as he hits his mark. To judge him by a merely 
literary standard is to judge a fencer by the grace of his 
attitudes. Some high literary merits are implied in ef- 
ficiency, as real grace is necessary to efficient fencing ; but, 
in either case, a clumsy blow which reaches the heart is 
better than the most dexterous flourish in the air. Swift's 
eye is always on the end, as a good marksman looks at 
nothing but the target. 

"What, then, is Swift's aim in the Examiner? Mr. King- 
lake has told us how a great journal throve by discover- 
ing what was the remark that was on every one's lips, and 
making the remark its own. Swift had the more digni- 
fied task of really striking the keynote for his party. He 
was to put the ministerial theory into that form in which 
it mio-ht seem to be the inevitable utterance of strong 
common-sense. Harley's supporters were to see in Swift's 
phrases just what they would themselves have said — if 
they had been able. The shrewd, sturdy, narrow preju- 
dices of the average Englishman were to be pressed into 
the service of the ministry, by showing how admirably 
they could be clothed in the ministerial formulas. 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 89 

The real question, again, as Swift saw, was the question 
of peace. Whig and Tory, as he said afterwards, 1 were 
really obsolete words. The true point at issue was peace 
or war. The purpose, therefore, was to take up his 
ground so that peace might be represented as the natural 
policy of the Church or Tory party, and war as the natu- 
ral fruit of the selfish Whigs. It was necessary, at the 
same time, to show that this was not the utterance of 
high-flying Toryism or downright Jacobitism, but the 
plain dictate of a cool and impartial judgment. He was 
not to prove but to take for granted that the war had be- 
come intolerably burdensome ; and to express the grow- 
ing wish for peace in terras likely to conciliate the great- 
est number of supporters. He was to lay down the plat- 
form which could attract as many as possible, both of the 
zealous Tories and of the lukewarm Whigs. 

Measured by their fitness for this end, the Examiners 
are admirable. Their very fitness for the end implies the 
absence of some qualities which would have been more 
attractive to posterity. Stirring appeals to patriotic sen- 
timent may suit a Chatham rousing a nation to action ; 
but Swift's aim is to check the extravagance in the name 
of selfish prosaic prudence. The philosophic reflections 
of Burke, had Swift been capable of such reflection, would 
have flown above the heads of his hearers. Even the 
polished and elaborate invective of Junius would have 
been out of place. No man, indeed, was a greater master 
of invective than Swift. He shows it in the Examiners 
by onslaughts upon the detested Wharton. He shows, 
too, that he is not restrained by any scruples when it 
comes in his way to attack his old patrons, and he adopts 
the current imputations upon their private character. He 
1 Letter to a Whig Lord, 1712. 



90 SWIFT. [chap. 

could roundly accuse Cowper of bigamy, and Somers — 
the Somers whom he had elaborately praised some years 
before in the dedication to the Tale of a Tub — of the 
most abominable perversion of justice. But these are 
taunts thrown out by the way. The substance of the 
articles is not invective, but profession of political faith. 
One great name, indeed, is of necessity assailed. Marl- 
borough's fame was a tower of strength for the Whigs. 
His duchess and his colleagues had fallen ; but whilst war 
was still raging it seemed impossible to dismiss the great- 
est living commander. Yet whilst Marlborough was still 
in power his influence might be used to bring back his 
party. Swift's treatment of this great adversary is signif- 
icant, lie constantly took credit for having suppressed 
many attacks 1 upon Marlborough, He was convinced 
that it would be dangerous for the country to dismiss a 
general whose very name carried victory. 2 He felt that it 
was dangerous for the party to make an unreserved attack 
upon the popular hero. Lord Eivers, he says, cursed the 
Examiner to him for speaking civilly of Marlborough; 
and St. John, upon hearing of this, replied that if the 
counsels of such men as Rivers were taken, the ministry 
" would be blown up in twenty-four hours." Yet Marl- 
borough was the war personified, and the way to victory 
lay over Marlborough's body. Nor had Swift any regard 
for the man himself, who, he says, 3 is certainly a vile man, 
and has no sort of merit except the military — as "covet- 
ous as hell, and as ambitious as the prince of it." 4 The 
whole case of the ministry implied the condemnation of 
Marlborough. Most modern historians would admit that 
continuance of the war could at this time be desired only 

1 Journal to Stella, Feb. 6, 1712, and Jan. 8 and 25, 1712. 

2 lb., Jan. 7, 1711. 3 lb., Jan. 21, 1712. * lb. y Dec. 31, 1710. 



v.] THE HAKLEY ADMINISTRATION. 91 

by fanatics or interested persons. A psychologist might 
amuse himself by inquiring what were the actual motives 
of its advocates; in what degrees personal ambition, a 
misguided patriotism, or some more sordid passions were 
blended. But in the ordinary dialect of political warfare 
there is no room for such refinements. The theory of 
Swift and Swift's patrons was simple. The war was the 
creation of the "Whig " ring ;" it was carried on for their 
own purposes by the stock-jobbers and "monied men," 
whose rise was a new political phenomenon, and who 
had introduced the diabolical contrivance of public debts. 
The landed interest and the Church had been hoodwinked 
too long by the union of corrupt interests supported by 
Dutchmen, Scotchmen^ Dissenters, freethinkers, and other 
manifestations of the evil principle. Marlborough was 
the head and patron of the w T hole. And what was Marl- 
borough's motive? The answer was simple. It was 
that which has been assigned, with even more emphasis, 
by Macaulay — avarice. The 27th Examiner (February 
8, 1711) probably contains the compliments to which 
Rivers objected. Swift, in fact, admits that Marlborough 
had all the great qualities generally attributed to him ; 
but all are spoilt by this fatal blemish. How far the ac- 
cusation was true matters little. It is put at least with 
force and dignity, and it expressed in the pithiest shape 
Swift's genuine conviction, that the war now meant cor- 
rupt self-interest. Invective, as Swift knew well enough 
in his cooler moments, is a dangerous w r eapon, apt to re- 
coil on the assailant unless it carries conviction. The 
attack on Marlborough does not betray personal ani- 
mosity, but the deliberate and the highly plausible judg- 
ment of a man determined to call things by their right 
names, and not to be blinded by military glory. 



92 SWIFT. [chap. 

This, indeed, is one of the points upon which Swift's 
Toryism was unlike that of some later periods. He 
always disliked and despised soldiers and their trade. 
"It will no doubt be a mighty comfort to our grand- 
children," he says in another pamphlet, 1 " when they see 
a few rags hung up in Westminster Hall which cost a 
hundred millions, whereof they are paying the arrears, 
to boast as beggars do that their grandfathers were rich 
and great." And in other respects he has some right to 
claim the adhesion of thorough Whigs. His personal at- 
tacks, indeed, upon the party have a questionable sound. 
In his zeal he constantly forgets that the corrupt ring 
which he denounces were the very men from whom he 
expected preferment. "I well remember," he says 3 else- 
where, " the clamours often raised during the late reign 
of that party (the Whigs) against the leaders by those 
who thought their merits were not rewarded; and they 
had, no doubt, reason on their side, because it is, no doubt, 
a misfortune to forfeit honour and conscience for noth- 
ing" — rather an awkward remark from a man who was 
calling Somers "a false, deceitful rascal" for not giving 
him a bishopric ! His eager desire to make the " un- 
grateful dogs" repent their ill usage of him prompts 
attacks which injure his own character with that of his 
former associates. But he has some ground for saying 
that Whigs have changed their principles, in the sense 
that their dislike of prerogative and of standing armies 
had curiously declined when the Crown and the army 
came to be on their side. Their enjoyment of power 
had made them soften some of the prejudices learnt in 
days of depression. Swift's dislike of what we now call 

1 Conduct of the Allies. 2 Advice to October Club. 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 93 

"militarism" really went deeper than any party senti- 
ment ; and in that sense, as we shall hereafter see, it had 
really most affinity with a Radicalism which would have 
shocked Whigs and Tories alike. But in this particular 
case it fell in with the Tory sentiment. The masculine 
vigour of the Examiners served the ministry, who were 
scarcely less in danger from the excessive zeal of their 
more bigoted followers than from the resistance of the 
"Whig minority. The pig-headed country squires had 
formed an October Club, to muddle themselves with beer 
and politics, and hoped — good, honest souls — to drive 
ministers into a genuine attack on the corrupt practices 
of their predecessors. All Harley's skill in intriguing and 
wire-pulling would be needed. The ministry, said Swift 
(on March 4), "stood like an isthmus" between Whigs 
and violent Tories. He trembled for the result. They 
are able seamen, but the tempest " is too great, the ship 
too rotten, and the crew all against them." Somers had 
been twice in the Queen's closet. The Duchess of Som- 
erset, who had succeeded the Duchess of Marlborough, 
might be trying to play Mrs. Masham's game. Harley, 
"though the most fearless man alive," seemed to be 
nervous, and was far from well. "Pray God preserve 
his health," says Swift; "everything depends upon it." 
Four days later Swift is in an agony. "My heart," 
he exclaims, " is almost broken." Harley had been stab- 
bed by Guiscard (March 8, 1711) at the council-board. 
Swift's letters and journals show an agitation in which 
personal affection seems to be even stronger than polit- 
ical anxiety. "Pray pardon my distraction," he says to 
Stella, in broken sentences. "I now think of all his 
kindness to me. The poor creature now lies stabbed in 
his bed by a desperate French Popish villain. Good 



94 SWIFT. [chap. 

night, and God bless you both, and pity me; I want 
it." He wrote to King under the same excitement. 
Harley, he says, "has always treated me with the ten- 
derness of a parent, and never refused me any favour I 
asked for a friend ; therefore I hope your Grace will ex- 
cuse the character of this letter." He apologizes again 
in a postscript for his confusion ; it must be imputed to 
the " violent pain of mind I am in — greater than ever I 
felt in my life." The danger was not over for three 
weeks. The chief effect seems to have been that Harley 
became popular as the intended victim of an hypothetical 
Popish conspiracy ; he introduced an applauded financial 
scheme in Parliament after his recovery, and was soon 
afterwards made Earl of Oxford by way of consolation. 
"This man," exclaimed Swift, "has grown by persecu- 
tions, turnings out, and stabbings. "What waiting and 
crowding and bowing there will be at his levee !" 

Swift had meanwhile (April 26) retired to Chelsea "for 
the air," and to have the advantage of a compulsory walk 
into town (two miles, or 5748 steps, each way, he calcu- 
lates). He was liable, indeed, to disappointment on a 
rainy day, when "all the three stage-coaches" were taken 
up by the "cunning natives of Chelsea;" but he got a 
lift to town in a gentleman's coach for a shilling. He 
bathed in the river on the hot nights, with his Irish ser- 
vant, Patrick, standing on the bank to warn off passing 
boats. The said Patrick, who is always getting drunk, 
whom Swift cannot find it in his heart to dismiss in 
England, who atones for his general carelessness and 
lying by buying a linnet for Dingley, making it wilder 
than ever in his attempts to tame it, is a characteristic 
figure in the journal. In June Swift gets ten days' holi- 
day at Wycombe, and in the summer he goes down pretty 



t.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 95 

often with the ministers to Windsor. He came to town 
in two hours and forty minutes on one occasion : " twenty- 
miles are nothing here." The journeys are described in 
one of the happiest of his occasional poems : 

11 'Tis (let me see) three years or more 
(October next it will be four) 
Since Harley bid me first attend, 
And chose me for an humble friend : 
Would take me in his coach to chat, 
And question me of this or that : 
As 'What's o'clock?' and ' How's the wind?' 
1 Whose chariot's that we left behind ?' 
Or gravely try to read the lines 
Writ underneath the country signs. 
Or, * Have you nothing new to-day 
From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay ?' 
Such tattle often entertains 
My lord and me as far as Staines, 
As once a week we travel down 
To Windsor, and again to town, 
Where all that passes inter nos 
Might be proclaimed at Charing Cross." 

And when, it is said, St. John was disgusted by the frivo- 
lous amusements of his companions, and his political dis- 
courses might be interrupted by Harley's exclamation, 
"Swift, I am up; there's a cat" — the first who saw a cat 
or an old woman winning the game. 

Swift and Harley were soon playing a more exciting 
game. Prior had been sent to France, to renew peace 
negotiations, with elaborate mystery. Even Swift was 
kept in ignorance. On his return Prior was arrested by 
officious custom-house officers, and the fact of his journey 
became public. Swift took advantage of the general in- 
terest by a pamphlet intended to " bite the town." Its 
5* 



96 SWIFT. [chap. 

political purpose, according to Swift, was to " f urnish fools 
with something to talk of ;" to draw a false scent across 
the trail of the angry and suspicious Whigs. It seems 
difficult to believe that any such effect could be produced 
or anticipated ; but the pamphlet, which purports to be an 
account of Prior's journey given by a French valet, desirous 
of passing himself off as a secretary, is an amusing example 
of Swift's power of grave simulation of realities. The peace 
negotiations brought on a decisive political struggle. Par- 
liament was to meet in September. The Whigs resolved 
to make a desperate effort. They had lost the House of 
Commons, but were still strong in the Peers. The Lords 
were not affected by the rapid oscillations of public opin- 
ion. They were free from some of the narrower prejudices 
of country squires, and true to a revolution which gave the 
chief power for more than a century to the aristocracy ; 
while the recent creations had ennobled the great Whig 
leaders, and filled the Bench with Low Churchmen. Marl- 
borough and Godolphin had come over to the Whig junto, 
and an additional alliance w T as now made. Nottingham 
had been passed over by Harley, as it seems, for his ex- 
treme Tory principles. In his wrath he made an agree- 
ment with the other extreme. By one of the most dis- 
graceful bargains of party history Nottingham w T as to join 
the Whigs in attacking the peace, whilst the Whigs were 
to buy his support by accepting the Occasional Conformity 
Bill — the favourite High Church measure. A majority in 
the House of Lords could not, indeed, determine the vic- 
tory. The Government of England, says Swift in 1715, 1 
" cannot move a step whilst the House of Commons con- 
tinues to dislike proceedings or persons employed." But 
the plot went further. The House of Lords might bring 
1 Behaviour of Queen's Ministry. 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 91 

about a deadlock, as it had done before. The Queen, hav- 
ing thrown off the rule of the Duchess of Marlborough, 
had sought safety in the rule of two mistresses, Mrs. 
Masharn and the Duchess of Somerset. The Duchess of 
Somerset was in the Whig interest, and her influence with 
the Queen caused the gravest anxiety to Swift and the min- 
istry. She might induce Anne to call back the Whigs, and 
in a new House of Commons, elected under a Whig min- 
istry wielding the crown influence and appealing to the 
dread of a discreditable peace, the majority might be re- 
versed. Meanwhile Prince Eugene was expected to pay a 
visit to England, bringing fresh proposals for war, and 
stimulating by his presence the enthusiasm of the Whigs. 
Towards the end of September the Whigs began to 
pour in a heavy fire of pamphlets, and Swift rather 
meanly begs the help of St. John and the law. But 
he is confident of victory. Peace is certain, and a peace 
" very much to the honour and advantage of England." 
The Whigs are furious ; " but we'll wherret them, I war- 
rant, boys." Yet he has misgivings. The news comes of 
the failure of the Tory expedition against Quebec, which 
was to have anticipated the policy and the triumphs of 
Chatham. Harley only laughs as usual ; but St. John is 
cruelly vexed, and begins to suspect his colleagues of sus- 
pecting him. Swift listens to both, and tries to smooth 
matters ; but he is growing serious. " I am half weary of 
them all," he exclaims, and begins to talk of retiring to 
Ireland. Harley has a slight illness, and Swift is at once 
in a fright. " We are all undone without him," he says, 
" so pray for him, sirrahs !" Meanwhile, as the parlia- 
mentary struggle comes nearer, Swift launches the pam- 
phlet which has been his summer's work. The Conduct 
of the Allies is intended to prove what he had taken for 



98 SWIFT. [chap. 

granted in the Examiners. It is to show, that is, that the 
war has ceased to be demanded by national interests. We 
ought always to have been auxiliaries ; we chose to become 
principals ; and have yet so conducted the war that all 
the advantages have gone to the Dutch. The explanation, 
of course, is the selfishness or corruption of the great Whig 
junto. The pamphlet, forcible and terse in the highest 
degree, had a success due in part to other circumstances. 
It was as much a state paper as a pamphlet ; a manifesto 
obviously inspired by the ministry, and containing the 
facts and papers which were to serve in the coming de- 
bates. It was published on November 27 ; on December 1 
the second edition was sold in five hours ; and by the end 
of January 11,000 copies had been sold. The parliament- 
ary struggle began on December 7 ; and the amendment to 
the address, declaring that no peace could be safe which 
left Spain to the Bourbons, was moved by Nottingham, and 
carried by a small majority. Swift had foreseen this dan- 
ger ; he had begged ministers to work up the majority ; 
and the defeat was due to Harley's carelessness. It was 
Swift's temper to anticipate though not to yield to the 
worst. He could see nothing but ruin. Every rumour 
increased his fears. The Queen had taken the hand of 
the Duke of Somerset on leaving the House of Lords, and 
refused Shrewsbury's. She must be going over. Swift, 
in his despair, asked St. John to find him some foreign 
post, where he might be out of harm's way if the Whigs 
should triumph. St. John laughed and affected courage, 
but Swift refused to be comforted. Harley told him that 
" all would be well ;" but Harley for the moment had lost 
his confidence. A week after the vote he looks upon the 
ministry as certainly ruined ; and " God knows," he adds, 
" what may be the consequences." By degrees a little 



Y.J THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 99 

hope began to appear ; though, the ministry, as Swift still 
held, could expect nothing till the Duchess of Somerset 
was turned out. By w T ay of accelerating this event, he 
hit upon a plan, which he had reason to repent, and which 
nothing but his excitement could explain. He composed 
and printed one of his favourite squibs, the Windsor 
Prophecy, and though Mrs. Masham persuaded him not to 
publish it, distributed too many copies for secrecy to be 
possible. In this production, now dull enough, he calls 
the duchess " Carrots," as a delicate hint at her red hair, 
and says that she murdered her second husband. 1 These 
statements, even if true, were not conciliatory; and it w r as 
folly to irritate without injuring. Meanwhile reports of 
ministerial plans gave him a little courage ; and in a day 
or two the secret was out. He was on his w 7 ay to the 
post on Saturday, December 28, when the great new 7 s 
came. The ministry had resolved on something like a 
coup d'etat, to be long mentioned with horror by all ortho- 
dox "Whigs and Tories. " I have broke open my letter," 
scribbled Swift in a coffee-house, " and tore it into the 
bargain, to let you know that we are all safe. The Queen 
has made no less than twelve new peers .... and has 
turned out the Duke of Somerset. She is awaked at last, 
and so is Lord Treasurer. I want nothing now but to sec 
the Duchess out. But we shall do without her. We are 
all extremely happy. Give me joy, sirrahs !" The Duke 
of Somerset was not out ; but a greater event happened 

1 There was enough plausibility in this scandal to give it a sting. 
The duchess had left her second husband, a Mr. Thynne, immediate- 
ly after the marriage ceremony, and fled to Holland. There Count 
Coningsmark paid her his addresses, and, coming to England, had 
Mr. Thynne shot by ruffians in Pall Mall. See the curious case in 
the State Trials, vol. ix. 



100 SWIFT. [chap. 

within three days: the Duke of Marlborough was removed 
from all his employments. The Tory victory was for the 
time complete. 

Here, too, was the culminating point of Swift's career. 
Fifteen months of energetic effort had been crowned with 
success. He was the intimate of the greatest men in the 
country, and the most powerful exponent of their policy. 
No man in England, outside the ministry, enjoyed a 
w 7 ider reputation. The ball was at his feet, and no posi- 
tion open to a clergyman beyond his hopes. Yet from 
this period begins a decline. He continued to write, pub- 
lishing numerous squibs, of which many have been lost, 
and occasionally firing a gun of heavier metal. But noth- 
ing came from him having the authoritative and master- 
ly tone of the Conduct of the Allies. His health broke 
down. At the beginning of April, 1712, he was attacked 
by a distressing complaint; and his old enemy, giddiness, 
gave him frequent alarms. The daily journal ceased, and 
was not fairly resumed till December, though its place is 
partly supplied by occasional letters. The political con- 
test had changed its character. The centre of interest was 
transferred to Utrecht, where negotiations began in Jan- 
uary, to be protracted over fifteen months : the ministry 
had to satisfy the demand for peace, without shocking the 
national self-esteem. Meanwhile jealousies were rapidly 
developing themselves, which Swift watched with ever- 
growing anxiety. 

Swift's personal influence remained or increased. He 
drew closer to Oxford, but was still friendly with St. 
John; and to the public his position seemed more im- 
posing than ever. Swift was not the man to bear his 
honours meekly. In the early period of his acquaintance 
with St. John (February 12, 1711) he sends the Prime 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 101 

Minister into the House of Commons, to tell the Secretary 
of State that "I would not dine with him if he dined 
late." He is still a novice at the Saturday dinners when 
the Duke of Shrewsbury appears: Swift whispers that he 
does not like to see a stranger among them; and St. 
John has to explain that the Duke has written for leave. 
St. John then tells Swift that the Duke of Buckingham 
desires his acquaintance. The Duke, replied Swift, has 
not made sufficient advances : and he always expects great- 
er advances from men in proportion to their rank. Dukes 
and great men yielded, if only to humour the pride of 
this audacious parson: and Swift soon came to be pes- 
tered by innumerable applicants, attracted by his ostenta- 
tion of influence. Even ministers applied through him. 
"There is not one of them," he says, in January, 1713, 
" but what will empioy me as gravely to speak for them 
to Lord Treasurer as if I were their brother or bis." He 
is proud of the burden of influence with the great, though 
he affects to complain. The most vivid picture of Swift 
in all his glory is in a familiar passage from Bishop Ken- 
nett's diary : 

"Swift," says Kennett, in 1713, "came into the coffee-house, and 
had a bow from everybody but me. When I came to the antecham- 
ber to wait before prayers Dr. Swift was the principal man of talk 
and business, and acted as Minister of Requests. He was soliciting 
the Earl of Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to 
get a chaplain's place established in the garrison of Hull for Mr. 
Fiddes, a clergyman in that neighbourhood, who had lately been in 
jail, and published sermons to pay fees. He was promising Mr. 
Thorold to undertake with my Lord Treasurer that according to his 
petition he should obtain a salary of 2001. per annum, as minister of 
the English Church at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esq., 
going in with the red bag to the Queen, and told him aloud he had 
something to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He talked with 



102 SWIFT. [chap. 

the son of Dr. Davenant to be sent abroad, and took out his pocket- 
book and wrote down several things as memoranda to do for him. 
He turned to the fire, and took out his gold watch, and telling him 
the time of day, complained it was very late. A gentleman said, * it 
was too fast.' ' How can I help it,' says the Doctor, ' if the court- 
iers give me a watch that won't go right ?' Then he instructed a 
young nobleman that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Pa- 
pist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English verse, for 
which, he said, he must have them all subscribe. 'For,' says he, 
'the author shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for 
him.' Lord Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the 
room, beckoning Dr. Swift to follow him ; both went off just before 
prayers." 

There is undoubtedly something offensive in this blus- 
tering self-assertion. "No man," says Johnson, with his 
usual force, " can pay a more servile tribute to the great 
than by suffering his liberty in their presence to aggran- 
dize him in his own esteem." Delicacy was not Swift's 
strong point ; his compliments are as clumsy as his in- 
vectives are forcible ; and he shows a certain taint of vul- 
garity in his intercourse with social dignitaries. He is, 
perhaps, avenging himself for the humiliations received at 
Moor Park. He has a Napoleonic absence of magnanimity. 
He likes to relish, his triumph ; to accept the pettiest as 
well as the greatest rewards; to flaunt his splendours in 
the eyes of the servile as well as to enjoy the conscious- 
ness of real power. But it would be a great mistake to 
infer that this ostentatiousness of authority concealed real 
servility. Swift preferred to take the bull by the horns. 
He forced himself upon ministers by self-assertion ; and he 
held them in awe of him as the lion-tamer keeps down the 
latent ferocity of the wild beast. He never takes his eye 
off his subjects, nor lowers his imperious demeanour. He 
retained his influence, as Johnson observes, long after his 



y.J THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 103 

services had ceased to be useful. And all this demonstra- 
tive patronage meant real and energetic work We may- 
note, for example, and it incidentally confirms Kennett's 
accuracy, that he was really serviceable to Davenant, 1 and 
that Fiddes got the chaplaincy at Hull. No man ever 
threw himself with more energy into the service of his 
friends. He declared afterwards that in the days of his 
credit he had done fifty times more for fifty people, from 
whom he had received no obligations, than Temple had 
done for him. 2 The journal abounds in proofs that this 
was not overstated. There is " Mr. Harrison," for ex- 
ample, who has written " some mighty pretty things." 
Swift takes him up ; rescues him from the fine friends 
who are carelessly tempting him to extravagance ; tries to 
start him in a continuation of the Taller; exults in getting 
him a secretaryship abroad, which he declares to be " the 
prettiest post in Europe for a young gentleman ;" and is 
most unaffectedly and deeply grieved when the poor lad 
dies of a fever. He is carrying 100/. to his young friend, 
when he hears of his death. " I told Parnell I was afraid 
to knock at the door — my mind misgave me," he says. On 
his way to bring help to Harrison he goes to see a " poor 
poet, one Mr. Diaper, in a nasty garret, very sick," and 
consoles him with twenty guineas from Lord Bolingbroke. 
A few days before he has managed to introduce Parnell to 
Harley, or rather to contrive it so that " the ministry de- 
sire to be acquainted with Parnell, and not Parnell with 
the ministry." His old schoolfellow Congreve was in 
alarm about his appointments. Swift spoke at once to 
Harley, and went off immediately to report his success to 
Congreve : " so," he says, " I have made a worthy man 

1 Letters from Smalridge and Dr. Davenant in 1713. 
8 Letter to Lord Palraerston, Januaryv29, 1726. 



104 SWIFT. [chap. 

easy, and that is a good day's work." 1 One of the latest 
letters in his journal refers to his attempt to serve his 
other schoolfellow, Berkeley. " I will favour him as 
much as I can," he says; "this I think I am bound to in 
honour and conscience, to use all my little credit towards 
helping forward men of worth in the world." He was 
always helping less conspicuous men ; and he prided him- 
self, with justice, that he had been as helpful to Whigs as 
to Tories. The ministry complained that he never came 
to them " without a "Whig in his sleeve." Besides his 
friend Congreve, he recommended Rowe for preferment, 
and did his best to protect Steele and Addison. No man 
of letters ever laboured more heartily to promote the inter- 
ests of his fellow-craftsmen, as few have ever had similar 
opportunities. 

Swift, it is plain, desired to use his influence magnifi- 
cently. He hoped to make his reign memorable by splen- 
did patronage of literature. The great organ of munifi- 
cence was the famous Brothers' Club, of which he was 
the animating spirit. It was founded in June, 1711, 
during Swift's absence at Wycombe ; it was intended to 
" advance conversation and friendship," and obtain patron- 
age for deserving persons. It was to include none but 
wits and men able to help wits, and, " if we go on as we 
began," says Swift, " no other club in this town will be 
worth talking of." In March, 1712, it consisted, as Swift 
tells us, of nine lords and ten commoners. 2 It excluded 

1 June 22, 1711. 

2 The list, so far as I can make it out from references in the jour- 
nal, appears to include more names. One or two had probably re- 
tired. The peers are as follows : The Dukes of Shrewsbury (perhaps 
only suggested), Ormond, and Beaufort ; Lords Orrery, Rivers, Dart- 
mouth, Dupplin, Masham, Bathurst, and Lansdowne (the last three 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 105 

Harley and tlie Lord Keeper (Harcourt), apparently as 
they were to be the distributors of the patronage ; but it 
included St. John and several leading ministers, Harley's 
son and son-in-law, and Harcourt's son ; whilst literature 
was represented by Swift, Arbuthnot, Prior, and Friend, all 
of whom were more or less actively employed by the min- 
istry. The club was, therefore, composed of the ministry 
and their dependents, though it had not avowedly a politi- 
cal colouring. It dined on Thursday during the parlia- 
mentary session, when the political squibs of the day were 
often laid on the table, including Swift's famous Windsor 
Prophecy, and subscriptions were sometimes collected for 
such men as Diaper and Harrison. It flourished, however, 
for little more than the first season. In the winter of 
1712-'13 it began to suffer from the common disease of 
such institutions. Swift began to complain bitterly of the 
extravagance of the charges. He gets the club to leave 
a tavern in which the bill 1 " for four dishes and four, first 
and second course, without wine and drink," had been 
21Z. 6s. 8d. The number of guests, it seems, was fourteen. 
Next winter the charges are divided. " It cost me nine- 
teen shillings to-day for my club dinner," notes Swift, De- 
cember 18, 1712. "I don't like it." Swift had a high 
value for every one of the nineteen shillings. The meet- 
ings became irregular : Harley was ready to give promises, 
but no patronage ; and Swift's attendance falls off. Indeed, 
it may be noted that he found dinners and suppers full of 
danger to his health. He constantly complains of their 

were of the famous twelve) ; and the commoners are Swift, Sir R. 
Raymond, Jack Hill, Disney, Sir W. Wyndham, St. John, Prior, Friend, 
Arbuthnot, Harley (son of Lord Oxford), and Harcourt (son of Lord 
Harcourt). 

1 February, 28, 1712. 



106 SWIFT. [chap. 

after-effects ; and partly, perhaps, for that reason he early 
ceases to frequent coffee-houses. Perhaps, too, his con- 
tempt for coffee-house society, and the increasing dignity 
which made it desirable to keep possible applicants at a 
distance, had much to do with this. The Brothers' Club, 
however, was long remembered by its members, and in 
later years they often address each other by the old fra- 
ternal title. 

One design which was to have signalized Swift's period 
of power suggested the only paper which he had ever pub- 
lished with his name. It was a " proposal for correcting, 
improving, and ascertaining the English language," pub- 
lished in May, 1712, in the form of a letter to Harley. 
The letter itself, written offhand in six hours (February 21, 
1712), is not of much value; but Swift recurs to the sub- 
ject frequently enough to show that he really hoped to be 
the founder of an English Academy. Had Swift been his 
own minister instead of the driver of a minister, the proj- 
ect might have been started. The rapid development of 
the political struggle sent Swift's academy to the limbo 
provided for such things; and few English authors will 
regret the failure of a scheme unsuited to our natural idio- 
syncrasy, and calculated, as I fancy, to end in nothing but 
an organization of pedantry. 

One remark, meanwhile, recurs which certainly struck 
Swift himself. He says (March 17, 1712) that Sacheverell, 
the Tory martyr, has come to him for patronage, and ob- 
serves that when he left Ireland neither of them could 
have anticipated such a relationship. "This," he adds, 
" is the seventh I have now provided for since I came, and 
can do nothing for myself." Hints at a desire for prefer- 
ment do not appear for some time ; but as he is constantly 
speaking of an early return to Ireland, and is as regularly 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 107 

held back by the entreaties of the ministry, there must 
have been at least an implied promise. A hint had been 
given that he might be made chaplain to Harley, when the 
minister became Earl of Oxford. " I will be no man's 
chaplain alive," he says. He remarks about the same time 
(May 23, 1711) that it "would look extremely little" if 
he returned without some distinction ; but he will not beg 
for preferment. The ministry, he says in the following 
August, only want him for one bit of business (the Con- 
duct of the Allies, presumably). When that is done he 
will take his leave of them. " I never got a penny from 
them nor expect it." The only post for which he made 
a direct application was that of historiographer. He had 
made considerable preparations for his so-called History 
of the Last Four Years of Queen Anne, which appeared 
posthumously, and which may be described as one of his 
political pamphlets without the vigour 1 — a dull statement 
of facts put together by a partisan affecting the historical 
character. This application, however, was not made till 
April, 17 14, when Swift was possessed of all the prefer- 
ment that he was destined to receive. He considered in 
his haughty way that he should be entreated rather than 
entreat; and ministers were, perhaps, slow to give him 
anything which could take him away from them. A secret 
influence was at work against him. The Tale of a Tub 
was brought up against him ; and imputations upon his 
orthodoxy were common. Nottingham even revenged 
himself by describing Swift in the House of Lords as a 
divine " who is hardly suspected of being a Christian." 

1 Its authenticity was doubted, but, as I think, quite gratuitously, 
by Johnson, by Lord Stanhope, and, as Stanhope says, by Macaulay. 
The dulncss is easily explicable by the circumstances of the compo- 
sition. 



108 SWIFT. [chap. 

Such insinuations were also turned to account by tlie 
Duchess of Somerset, who retained her influence over 
Anne in spite of Swift's attacks. His journal in the win- 
ter of 1712-' 13 shows growing discontent. In December, 
1712, he resolves to write no more till something is done 
for him. He will get under shelter before he makes more 
enemies. He declares that he is " soliciting nothing" (Feb- 
ruary 4, 17 13), but he is growing impatient. Harley is 
kinder than ever. " Mighty kind !" exclaims Swift, " with 

a ; less of civility and more of interest ;" or, as he 

puts it in one of his favourite " proverbs " soon afterwards, 
" my grandmother used to say : 

1 More of your lining, 
And less of your dining.' " 

At last Swift, hearing that he w 7 as again to be passed over, 
gave a positive intimation that he would retire if nothing 
was done ; adding that he should complain of Harley for 
nothing but neglecting to inform him sooner of the hope- 
lessness of his position. 1 The Dean of St. Patrick's was at 
last promoted to a bishopric, and Swift appointed to the 
vacant deanery. The warrant was signed on April 23, and 
in June Swift set out to take possession of his deanery. 
It was no great prize; he would have to pay 1000/. for 
the house and fees, and thus, he says, it would be three 
years before he would be the richer for it ; and, more- 
over, it involved what he already described as " banish- 
ment" to a country which he hated. 

His state of mind when entering upon his preferment 

was painfully depressed. " At my first coming," he writes 

to Miss Vanhomrigh, " I thought I should have died with 

discontent ; and was horribly melancholy while they were 

1 April 13, 1713. 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 109 

installing me; but it begins to wear off and change to 
dulness." This depression is singular, when we remem- 
ber that Swift was returning to the woman for whom he 
had the strongest affection, and from whom he had been 
separated for nearly three years ; and, moreover, that he 
was returning as a famous and a successful man. He 
seems to have been received with some disfavour by a 
society of Whig proclivities. He was suffering from a 
fresh return of ill-health ; and, besides the absence from 
the political struggles in which he was so keenly interest- 
ed, he could not think of them without deep anxiety. 
He returned to London in October at the earnest request 
of political friends. Matters were looking serious ; and 
though the journal to Stella was not again taken up, we 
can pretty well trace the events of the following -period. 

There can rarely have been a less congenial pair of 
colleagues than Harley and St. John. Their union was 
that of a still more brilliant, daring, and self-confident 
Disraeli with a very inferior edition of Sir Eobert Peel, 
with smaller intellect and exaggerated infirmities. The 
timidity, procrastination, and "refinement" of the Treas- 
urer were calculated to exasperate his audacious colleague. 
From the earliest period Swift had declared that every- 
thing depended upon the good mutual understanding of 
the two ; he was frightened by every symptom of discord, 
and declares (in August, 1711) that he has ventured all his 
credit with the ministers to remove their differences. He 
knew, as he afterwards said (October 20, 1711), that this 
was the way to be sent back to his willows at Laracor, 
but everything must be risked in such a case. When 
difficulties revived next year he hoped that he had made 
a reconciliation. But the discord was too vital. The 
victory of the Tories brought on a serious danger. They 



110 SWIFT. [chap. 

had come into power to make peace. They had made it. 
The next question was that of the succession of the crown. 
Here they neither reflected the general opinion of the 
nation nor were agreed amongst themselves. Harley, as 
we now know, had flirted with the Jacobites ; and Boling- 
broke was deep in treasonable plots. The existence of 
such plots was a secret to Swift, who indignantly denied 
their existence. When King hinted at a possible danger 
to Swift from the discovery of St. John's treason, he in- 
dignantly replied that he must have been "a most false 
and vile man " to join in anything of the kind. 1 He pro- 
fesses elsewhere his conviction that there were not at this 
period five hundred Jacobites in England ; and " amongst 
these not six of any quality or consequence." 2 Swift's 
sincerity, here as everywhere, is beyond all suspicion ; but 
his conviction proves incidentally that he was in the dark 
as to the "wheels within wheels" — the backstairs plots, 
by which the administration of his friends w T as hampered 
and distracted. With so many causes for jealousy and 
discord, it is no wonder that the political w T orld became a 
mass of complex intrigue and dispute. The Queen, mean- 
while, might die at any moment, and some decided course 
of action become imperatively necessary. Whenever the 
Queen was ill, said Harley, people were at their wits' end ; 
as soon as she recovered they acted as if she were im- 
mortal. Yet, though he complained of the general inde- 
cision, his own conduct was most hopelessly undecided. 

It was in the hopes of pacifying these intrigues that 
Swift was recalled from Ireland. He plunged into the 
fight, but not with his old success. Two pamphlets which 
he published at the end of 17 13 are indications of his 

1 Letter to King, December 1C, 1716. 

2 Inquiry into the Behaviour of the QucerCs last Ministry. 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. Ill 

state of mind. One was an attack upon a wild no-popery 
shriek emitted by Bishop Burnet, whom he treats, says 
Johnson, "like one whom he is glad of an opportunity to 
insult." A man who, like Burnet, is on friendly terms 
with those who assail the privileges of his order must often 
expect such treatment from its zealous adherents. Yet the 
scornful assault, which finds out weak places enough in 
Burnet's mental rhetoric, is in painful contrast to the dig- 
nified argument of earlier pamphlets. The other pam- 
phlet w r as an incident in a more painful contest. Swift 
had tried to keep on good terms with Addison and Steele. 
He had prevented Steele's dismissal from a Commissioner- 
ship of Stamps. Steele, however, had lost his place of 
Gazetteer for an attack upon Harley. Swift persuaded 
Harley to be reconciled to Steele, on condition that Steele 
should apologize. Addison prevented Steele from making 
the required submission, " out of mere spite," says Swift, 
at the thought that Steele should require other help — 
rather, we guess, because Addison thought that the sub- 
mission would savour of party infidelity. A coldness fol- 
lowed. " All our friendship is over," said Swift of Addi- 
son (March 6, 1711); and though good feeling revived 
between the principals, their intimacy ceased. Swift, 
swept into the ministerial vortex, pretty well lost sight of 
Addison ; though they now and then met on civil terms. 
Addison dined with Swift and St. John upon April 3, 
1713, and Swift attended a rehearsal of Cato — the only 
time when we see him at a theatre. Meanwhile the ill 
feeling to Steele remained, and bore bitter fruit. 

Steele and Addison had to a great extent retired from 

politics, and during the eventful years 1711—12 were 

chiefly occupied in the politically harmless Spectator. 

But Steele was always ready to find vent for his zeal ; 

6 



112 SWIFT. [chap. 

and in 1713 be fell foul of the Examiner in the Guardian. 
Swift had long ceased to write Examiners or to be respon- 
sible for the conduct of the paper, though he still occa- 
sionally inspired the writers. Steele, naturally enough, 
supposed Swift to be still at work; and in defending a 
daughter of Steele's enemy, Nottingham, not only sug- 
gested that Swift was her assailant, but added an insinua- 
tion that Swift was an infidel. The imputation stung 
Swift to the quick. He had a sensibility to personal at- 
tacks, not rare with those who most freely indulge in 
them, which was ridiculed by the easy-going Harley. An 
attack from an old friend — from a friend whose good opin- 
ion he still valued, though their intimacy had ceased; from 
a friend, moreover, whom in spite of their separation he 
had tried to protect; and, finally, an attack upon the ten- 
derest part of his character, irritated him beyond measure. 
Some angry letters passed, Steele evidently regarding Swift 
as a traitor, and disbelieving his professions of innocence 
and his claims to active kindness; whilst Swift felt Steele's 
ingratitude the more deeply from the apparent plausibility 
of the accusation. If Steele was really unjust and ungen- 
erous, we may admit as a partial excuse that in such cases 
the less prosperous combatant has a kind of right to bitter- 
ness. The quarrel broke out at the time of Swift's appoint- 
ment to the deanery. Soon after the new Dean's return to 
England, Steele was elected member for Stockbridge, and 
rushed into political controversy. His most conspicuous 
performance was a frothy and pompous pamphlet called 
the Crisis, intended to rouse alarms as to French invasion 
and Jacobite intrigues. Swift took the opportunity to re- 
venge himself upon Steele. Two pamphlets — The impor- 
tance of the " Guardian " considered, and The Public Spirit 
of the Whigs (the latter in answ 7 cr to the Crisis) — are fierce 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 113 

attacks upon Steele personally and politically. Swift's feel- 
ing comes out sufficiently in a remark in the first. He re- 
verses the saying about Cranmer, and says that he may 
affirm of Steele, "Do him a good turn, and he is your 
enemy for ever." There is vigorous writing enough, and 
effective ridicule of Steele's literary style and political 
alarmism. But it is painfully obvious, as in the attack 
upon Burnet, that personal animosity is now the predom- 
inant instead of an auxiliary feeling. Swift is anxious be- 
yond all things to mortify and humiliate an antagonist. 
And he is in proportion less efficient as a partisan, though 
more amusing. He has, moreover, the disadvantage of be- 
ing politically on the defensive. He is no longer proclaim- 
ing a policy, but endeavouring to disavow the policy at- 
tributed to his party. The wrath which breaks forth, and 
the bitter personality with which it is edged, were far more 
calculated to irritate his opponents than to disarm the 
lookers-on of their suspicions. 

Part of the fury w T as no doubt due to the growing un- 
soundness of his political position. Steele in the beginning 
of 1714 was expelled from the House for the Crisis ; and 
an attack made upon Swift in the House of Lords for an 
incidental outburst against the hated Scots, in his reply to 
the Crisis, w T as only staved off by a manoeuvre of the min- 
istry. Meanwhile Swift w T as urging the necessity of union 
upon men who hated each other more than they regarded 
any public cause whatever. Swift at last brought his two 
patrons together in Lady Masham's lodgings, and entreated 
them to be reconciled. If, he said, they would agree, all 
existing mischiefs could be remedied in two minutes. If 
they would not, the ministry would be ruined in two 
months. Bolingbroke assented ; Oxford characteristically 
shuffled, said " all would be well," and asked Swift to dine 
f 



114 SWIFT. [cuap. 

with him next day. Swift, however, said that he would 
not stay to see the inevitable catastrophe. It was his 
natural instinct to hide his head in such moments; his 
intensely proud and sensitive nature could not bear to 
witness the triumph of his enemies, and he accordingly 
retired at the end of May, 1714, to the quiet parsonage 
of Upper Letcombe, in Berkshire. The public wondered 
and speculated; friends wrote letters describing the scenes 
which followed, and desiring Swift's help ; and he read, 
and walked, and chewed the cud of melancholy reflection, 
and thought of stealing away to Ireland. He wrote, how- 
ever, a very remarkable pamphlet, giving his view of the 
situation, which was not published at the time ; events 
went too fast. 

Swift's conduct at this critical point is most noteworthy. 
The pamphlet {Free Thoughts upon the Present State of 
Affairs) exactly coincides with all his private and public 
utterances. His theory was simple and straightforward. 
The existing situation was the culminating result of 
Harley's policy of refinement and procrastination. Swift 
two years before had written a very able remonstrance 
with the October Club, who had sought to push Harley 
into decisive measures ; but though he preached patience 
he really sympathized with their motives. Instead of 
making a clean sweep of his opponents, Harley had left 
many of them in office, either from " refinement" — that 
over-subtlety of calculation which Swift thought inferior 
to plain common sense, and which, to use his favourite 
illustration, is like the sharp knife that mangles the paper, 
when a plain, blunt paper-knife cuts it properly — or else 
from inability to move the Queen, which he had foolishly 
allowed to pass for unwillingness, in order to keep up the 
appearance of power. Two things were now to be done : 



v.] THE HARLEY ADMINISTRATION. 115 

first, a clean sweep should be made of all Whigs and Dis- 
senters from office and from the army ; secondly, the 
Court of Hanover should be required to break off all in- 
tercourse with the Opposition, on which condition the 
heir-presumptive (the infant Prince Frederick) might be 
sent over to reside in England. Briefly, Swift's policy 
was a policy of "thorough." Oxford's vacillations were 
the great obstacle, and Oxford was falling before the alli- 
ance of Bolingbroke with Lady Masharn. Bolingbroke 
might have turned Swift's policy to the account of the 
Jacobites ; but Swift did not take this into account, and 
in the Free Thoughts he declares his utter disbelief in any 
danger to the succession. What side, then, should he 
take? He sympathized with Bolingbroke's avowed prin- 
ciples. Bolingbroke was eager for his help, and even 
hoped to reconcile him to the red-haired duchess. But 
Swift was bound to Oxford by strong personal affection ; 
by an affection which was not diminished even by the fact 
that Oxford had procrastinated in the matter of Swift's 
own preferment ; and was, at this very moment, annoying 
him by delaying to pay the 1000Z. incurred by his in- 
stallation in the deanery. To Oxford he had addressed 
(November 21, 1713) a letter of consolation upon the 
death of a daughter, possessing the charm which is given 
to such letters only by the most genuine sympathy with 
the feelings of the loser, and by a spontaneous selection 
of the only safe topic — praise of the lost, equally tender 
and sincere. Every reference to Oxford is affectionate. 
When, at the beginning of July, Oxford was hastening to 
his fall, Swift wrote to him another manly and dignified 
letter, professing an attachment beyond the reach of ex- 
ternal accidents of power and rank. The end came soon. 
Swift heard that Oxford was about to resign. He wrote 



116 SWIFT. [chap.y. 

at once (July 25, 1714) to propose to accompany him to 
his country house. Oxford replied two days later in a 
letter oddly characteristic. He begs Swift to come with 
him : " If I have not tired you tete-a-tete, fling aw r ay so 
much of your time upon one who loves you ;" and then 
rather spoils the pathos by a bit of hopeless doggerel. 
Swift wrote to Miss Vanhomrigh on August 1. "I have 
been asked," he says, " to join with those people now in 
power; but I will not do it. I told Lord Oxford I would 
go with him, when he was out ; and now he begs it of 
me, and I cannot refuse him. I meddle not with his 
faults, as he w T as a Minister of State ; but you know his 
personal kindness to me was excessive ; he distinguished 
and chose me above all other men, while he was great, and 
his letter to me the other day was the most moving im- 
aginable." 

An intimacy which bore such fruit in time of trial was 
not one founded upon a servility varnished by self-asser- 
tion. No stauncher friend than Swift ever lived. But 
his fidelity was not to be put to further proof. The day 
of the letter just quoted was the day of Queen Anne's 
death. The crash which followed ruined the "people 
now in power " as effectually as Oxford. The party with 
which Swift had identified himself, in whose success all 
his hopes and ambitions were bound up, was not so much 
ruined as annihilated. "The Earl of Oxford," wrote 
Bolingbroke to Swift, " was removed on Tuesday. The 
Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this, and how 
does fortune banter us !" 



CHAPTER VI. 

STELLA AND VANESSA. 

The final crash of the Tory administration found Swift 
approaching the end of his forty-seventh year. It found 
him, in his own opinion, prematurely aged both in mind 
and body. His personal prospects and political hopes 
were crushed. " I have a letter from Dean Swift," says 
Arbuthnot in September; "he keeps up his noble spirit, 
and though like a man knocked down, you may behold 
him still w r ith a stern countenance and aiming a blow at 
his adversaries." Yet his adversaries knew, and he knew 
only too well, that such blows as he could now deliver 
could at most show his wrath without gratifying his 
revenge. He was disarmed as well as "knocked down." 
He writes to Bolingbroke from Dublin in despair. "I 
live a country life in tow T n," he says, " see nobody and go 
every day once to prayers, and hope in a few months to 
grow as stupid as the present situation of affairs will 
require. Well, after all, parsons are not such bad com- 
pany, especially when they are under subjection ; and I 
let none but such come near me." Oxford, Bolingbroke, 
and Ormond were soon in exile or the Tower; and a let- 
ter to Pope next year gives a sufficient picture of Swift's 
feelings. " You know," he said, " how well I loved both 
Lord Oxford and Bolingbroke, and how dear the Duke of 



118 SWIFT. [chap. 

Ormond is to me ; do you imagine I can be easy while 
their enemies are endeavouring to take off their heads? — 
/ nunc et versus tecum meditare canoros /" " You are to 
understand," he says in conclusion, " that I live in the 
corner of a vast unfurnished house ; my family consists 
of a steward, a groom, a helper in the stable, a footman, 
and an old maid, who are all at board wages, and when I 
do not dine abroad or make an entertainment (which last 
is very rare), I eat a mutton pie and drink half a pint of 
wine ; my amusements are defending my small dominions 
against the archbishop, and endeavouring to reduce my 
rebellious choir. Perditur hcec inter misero luxP In an- 
other of the dignified letters which show the finest side 
of his nature he offered to join Oxford, whose intrepid 
behaviour, he says, " has astonished every one but me, 
who know you so well." But he could do nothing be- 
yond showing sympathy ; and he remained alone asserting 
his authority in his ecclesiastical domains, brooding over 
the past, and for the time unable to divert his thoughts 
into any less distressing channel. Some verses written 
in October "in sickness" give a remarkable expression 
of his melancholy: 

" 'Tis true — then why should I repine 
To see my life so fast decline ? 
But why obscurely here alone, 
Where I am neither loved nor known ? 
My state of health none care to learn, 
My life is here no soul's concern, 
And those with whom I now converse 
Without a tear will tend my hearse." 

Yet we might have fancied that his lot would not be 
so unbearable. After all, a fall which ends in a deanerv 
should break no bones. His friends, though hard pressed, 



vi.] STELLA AND VANESSA. 119 

survived ; and, lastly, was any one so likely to shed tears 
upon his hearse as the woman to whom he was finally 
returning? The answer to this question brings us to a 
story imperfectly known to us, but of vital importance in 
Swift's history. 

We have seen in what masterful fashion Swift took pos- 
session of great men. The same imperious temper shows 
itself in his relations to women. He required absolute 
submission. Entrance into the inner circle of his affec- 
tions could only be achieved by something like abase- 
ment ; but all within it became as a part of himself, to 
be both cherished and protected without stint. His 
affectation of brutality was part of a system. On first 
meeting Lady Burlington, at her husband's house, he 
ordered her to sing. She declined. He replied, " Sing, 
or I will make you ! Why, madam, I suppose you take 
me for one of your English hedge-parsons ; sing when I 
tell you !" She burst into tears and retired. The next 
time he met her he began, "Pray, madam, are you as 
proud and ill-natured as when I saw you last?" She 
good - humouredly gave in, and Swift became her warm 
friend. Another lady to whom he was deeply attached 
was a famous beauty, Anne Long. A whimsical treaty 
was drawn up, setting forth that "the said Dr. Swift, 
upon the score of his merit and extraordinary qualities, 
doth claim the sole and undoubted right that all per- 
sons whatever shall make such advance to him as he 
pleases to demand, any law, claim, custom, privilege of 
sex, beauty, fortune or quality to the contrary notwith- 
standing;" and providing that Miss Long shall cease the 
contumacy in which she has been abetted by the Yan- 
homrighs, but be allowed in return, in consideration of her 
being "a Lady of the Toast," to give herself the reputation 
6* * 



120 SWIFT. [chap. 

of being one of Swift's acquaintance. Swift's affection for 
Miss Long is touchingly expressed in private papers, and 
in a letter written upon her death in retirement and 
poverty. He intends to put up a monument to her mem- 
ory, and wrote a notice of her, " to serve her memory," 
and also, as he characteristically adds, to spite the brother 
who had neglected her. Years afterwards he often refers 
to the " edict " which he annually issued in England, 
commanding all ladies to make him the first advances. 
He graciously mates an exception in favour of the Duch- 
ess of Queensberry, though he observes incidentally that 
he now hates all people whom he cannot command. This 
humorous assumption, like all Swift's humour, has a 
strong element of downright earnest. He gives whimsi- 
cal prominence to a genuine feeling. He is always acting 
the part of despot, and acting it very gravely. "When he 
stays at Sir Arthur Acheson's, Lady Acheson becomes 
his pupil, and is " severely chid " when she reads wrong. 
Mrs. Pendarves, afterwards Mrs. Delany, says in the same 
way that Swift calls himself "her master," and corrects 
her when she speaks bad English. 1 He behaved in the 
same way to his servants. Delany tells us that he was 
11 one of the best masters in the world," paid his servants 
the highest rate of wages known, and took great pains 
to encourage and help them to save. But, on engaging 
them, he always tested their humility. One of their du- 
ties, he told them, would be to take turns in cleaning the 
scullion's shoes, and if they objected he sent them about 
their business. He is said to have tested a curate's docil- 
ity in the same way by offering him sour wine. His do- 
minion was most easily extended over women ; and a long 
list might be easily made out of the feminine favourites 

1 Autobiography, vol. i., p. 407. 



yi.J STELLA AND VANESSA. 121 

who at all periods of his life were in more or less intimate 
relations with this self-appointed sultan. From the wives 
of peers and the daughters of lord lieutenants clown to 
Dublin tradeswomen with a taste for rhyming, and even 
scullery-maids with no tastes at all, a whole hierarchy of 
female slaves bowed to his rule, and were admitted into 
higher and lower degrees of favour. 

Esther Johnson, or Stella — to give her the name which 
she did not receive until after the period of the famous 
journals — was one of the first of these worshippers. As 
we have seen, he taught her to write, and when he went 
to Laracor she accepted the peculiar position already 
described. We have no direct statement of their mutual 
feelings before the time of the journal ; but one remark- 
able incident must be noticed. During his stay in Eng- 
land in 1703-04 Swift had some correspondence with a 
Dublin clergyman named Tisdall. He afterwards regarded 
Tisdall with a contempt which, for the present, is only 
half perceptible in some good-humoured raillery. Tis- 
dalPs intimacy with " the ladies," Stella and Mrs. Dingley, 
is one topic, and in the last of Swift's letters we find that 
Tisdall has actually made an offer for Stella. Swift had 
replied in a letter (now lost), which Tisdall called un- 
friendly, unkind, and unaccountable. Swift meets these 
reproaches coolly, contemptuously, and straightforwardly. 
He will not affect unconsciousness of TisdalPs meaning. 
Tisdall obviously takes him for a rival in Stella's affec- 
tions. Swift replies that he will tell the naked truth. 
The truth is that "if his fortune and humour served 
him to think of that state" (marriage) he would prefer 
Stella to any one on earth. So much, he says, he has 
declared to Tisdall before. He did not, however, think 
of his affection as an obstacle to TisdalPs hopes. Tisdall 



122 SWIFT. [chap. 

had been too poor to marry ; but the offer of a living has 
removed that objection; and Swift undertakes to act what 
he has hitherto acted, a friendly though passive part. 
He had thought, he declares, that the affair had gone too 
far to be broken off; he had always spoken of Tisdall in 
friendly terms; "no consideration of my ow 7 n misfortune 
in losing so good a friend and companion as her" shall 
prevail upon him to oppose the match, " since it is held 
so necessary and convenient a thing for ladies to marry, 
and that time takes off from the lustre of virgins in all 
other eyes but mine." 

The letter must have suo-o-csted some doubts to Tisdall. 
Swift alleges as his only reasons for not being a rival in 
earnest his " humour " and the state of his fortune. The 
last obstacle might be removed at any moment. Swift's 
prospects, though deferred, were certainly better than Tis- 
dall's. Unless, therefore, the humour was more insur- 
mountable than is often the case, Swift's coolness was 
remarkable or ominous. It may be that, as some have 
held, there was nothing behind. But another possibility 
undoubtedly suggests itself. Stella had received Tisdall's 
suit so unfavourably that it was now suspended, and that 
it finally failed. Stella was corresponding with Swift. It 
is easy to guess that, between the " unaccountable " letter 
and the contemptuous letter, Swift had heard something 
from Stella which put him thoroughly at ease in regard to 
TisdalPs attentions. 

Wc have no further information until, seven years after- 
wards, we reach the Journal to Stella, and find ourselves 
overhearing the " little language." The first editors scru- 
pled at a full reproduction of what might strike an un- 
friendly reader as almost drivelling ; and Mr. Forster re- 
printed for the first time the omitted parts of the still 



vi.] STELLA AND VANESSA. 123 

accessible letters. The little language is a continuation of 
Stella's infantile prattle. Certain letters are a cipher for 
pet names which may be conjectured. Swift calls himself 
Pdfr, or Podefar, meaning, as Mr. Forster guesses, " Poor, 
dear Foolish Rogue." Stella, or rather Esther Johnson, is 
Ppt, say "Poppet." MD, "my dear," means Stella, and 
sometimes includes Mrs. Dingley. FW means " farewell," 
or "foolish wenches;" Lele is taken by Mr. Forster to 
mean " truly " or " lazy," or " there, there," or to have 
" other meanings not wholly discoverable." The phrases 
come in generally by way of leave-taking. " So I got 
into bed," he says, " to write to MD, MD, for we must 
always write to MD, MD, MD, awake or asleep ;" and he 
ends, "Go to bed. Help pdfr. Eove pdfr, MD, MD. 
Nite darling rogues." Here is another scrap : " I assure oo 
it im vely late now ; but zis goes to-morrow ; and I must 
have time to converse with own deerichar MD. Nite de 
deer Sollahs." One more leave-taking may be enough : 
"Farewell, dearest hearts and souls, MD. Farewell, MD, 
MD, MD. FW, FW, FW. ME, ME. Lele, Lele, Lele, 
Sollahs, Lele." 

The reference to the Golden Farmer already noted is 
in the words, "I warrant oo don't remember the Golden 
Farmer neither, Figgarkick Solly," and I will venture to a 
guess at what Mr. Forster pronounces to be inexplicable. 1 
May not Solly be the same as " Sollah," generally inter- 
preted by the editors as " sirrah ;" and " Figgarkick " 
possibly be the same as Pilgarlick, a phrase; which he 
elsewhere applies to Stella, 2 and which the dictionaries 
say means " poor, deserted creature ?" 

1 Forster, p. 108. 

2 October 20, 1711. The last use I have observed of this word is 
in a letter of Carlyle's, November 7, 1824 : " Strange pilgarlic-looking 
figures." — Froude's Life of Carlylc, vol. i., p. 247. 



124 SWIFT. [chap. 

Swift says that as he writes bis language be " makes up 
his mouth just as if he was speaking it." It fits the 
affectionate caresses in which he is always indulging. 
Nothing, indeed, can be more charming than the playful 
little prattle which occasionally interrupts the gossip and 
the sharp utterances of hope or resentment. In the snatches 
of leisure, late at night or before he has got up in the 
morning, be delights in an imaginary chat ; for a few 
minutes of little fondling talk help him to forget his 
worries, and anticipate the happiness of reunion. He 
caresses her letters, as he cannot touch her hand. "And 
now let us come and see what this saucy, dear letter of 
MD says. Come out, letter, come out from between the 
sheets; here it is underneath, and it will not come out. 
Come out again, I says ; so there. Here it is. What 
says Pdf to me, pray ? says it. Come and let me answer 
for you to your ladies. Hold up your head then like a 
good letter." And so be begins a little talk, and prays 
that they may be never separated again for ten days 
whilst he lives. Then he follows their movements in 
Dublin in passages which give some lively little pictures 
of their old habits. " And where will you go to-day ? for 
I cannot be with you for the ladies." [He is off sight- 
seeing to the Tower and Bedlam with Lady Kerry and a 
friend.] " It is a rainy, ugly day ; I would have you send 
for Wales, and go to the Dean's ; but do not play small 
games when you lose. You will be ruined by Manilio, 
Basto, the queen, and two small trumps in red. I confess 
it is a good hand against the player. But, then, there 
are Spadilio, Punto, the king, strong trumps against you, 
which with one trump more are three tricks ten ace ; for 
suppose you play your Manilio — 0, silly, how I prate and 
cannot get away from MD in a morning. Go, get you 



ti.J STELLA AND VANESSA. 125 

gone, dear naughty girls, and let me rise." lie delights, 
again, in turning to account his queer talent for making 
impromptu proverbs: 

11 Be you lords or be you earls, 
You must write to naughty girls." 

Or again : 

" Mr. White and Mr. Red 
Write to M.D. when a-bed ; 
Mr. Black and Mr. Brown 
Write to M.D. when you are down ; 
Mr. Oak and Mr. Willow 
Write to M.D. on your pillow." 

And here is one more for the end of the year: 

11 Would you answer M.D.'s letter 
On New Year's Day you will do it better; 
For when the year with M.D. 'gina 
It without M.D. never 'lins." 

11 These proverbs," he explains, " have always old words in 
them ; lin is leave off." 

" But if on New Year you write nones 
M.D. then will bang your bones.' ' 

Reading these fond triflings we feel even now as 
though, we were unjustifiably prying into the writer's con- 
fidence. "What are we to say to them? "We might sim- 
ply say that the tender playfulness is charming, and that 
it is delightful to find the stern gladiator turning from 
party warfare to soothe his wearied soul with these tender 
caresses. There is but one drawback. Macaulay imitates 
some of this prattle in his charming letters to his younger 
sister, and there we can accept it without difficulty. But 
Stella was not Swift's younger sister. She was a beauti- 
ful and clever woman of thirty, when he was in the prime 



126 SWIFT. [chap. 

of his powers at forty-four. If Tisdall could have seen 
the journal he would have ceased to call Swift " unac- 
countable." Did all this caressing suggest nothing to 
Stella? Swift does not write as an avowed lover; Ding- 
ley serves as a chaperone even in these intimate confi- 
dences; and yet a word or two escapes which certainly 
reads like something more than fraternal affection. He 
apologizes (May 23, 1711) for not returning: "I will say 
no more, but beg you to be easy till Fortune takes her 
course, and to believe that MD's felicity is the great goal 
I aim at in all my pursuits." If such words addressed 
under such circumstances did not mean " I hope to make 
you my wife as soon as I get a deanery," there must have 
been some distinct understanding to limit their force. 

But another character enters the drama. Mrs. Van- 
homrigh, 1 a widow rich enough to mix in good society, 
was living in London with two sons and two daughters, 
and made Swift's acquaintance in 1708. Her eldest 
daughter, Hester, was then seventeen, or about ten years 
younger than Stella* When Swift returned to London, in 
1710, he took lodgings close to the Vanhomrighs, and 
became an intimate of the family. In the daily reports 
of his dinner the name Van occurs more frequently than 
any other. Dinner, let us observe in passing, had not 
then so much as now the character of a solemn religious 
rite, implying a formal invitation. The ordinary hour 
•was three (though Harley with his usual procrastination 
often failed to sit down till six), and Swift, when not pre- 
engaged, looked in at Court or elsewhere in search of an 
invitation. He seldom failed; and when nobody else 
offered he frequently went to the " Vans." The name of 

1 Lord Orrery instructs us to pronounce this name Vanmmeury. 



yl] STELLA AND VANESSA. 127 

the daughter is only mentioned two or three times ; 
whilst it is, perhaps, a suspicious circumstance that he 
very often makes a quasi-apology for his dining-place. " I 
was so lazy I dined where my new gown was, at Mrs. 
Vanhornrigh's," he says, in May, 1711; and a day or two 
later explains that he keeps his " best gown and periwig " 
there whilst he is lodging at Chelsea, and often dines 
there " out of mere listlessness." The phrase may not 
have been consciously insincere ; but Swift was drifting 
into an intimacy which Stella could hardly approve, and, 
if she desired Swift's love, w^ould regard as ominous. 
When Swift took possession of his deanery he revealed 
his depression to Miss Vanhomrigh, who about this time 
took the title Vanessa; and Vanessa, again, received his 
confidences from Letcombe. A full account of their re- 
lations is given in the remarkable poem called Cadenus 
and Vanessa, less remarkable, indeed, as a poem than as 
an autobiographical document. It is singularly character- 
istic of Swift that we can use what, for want of a better 
classification, must be called a love poem, as though it 
were an affidavit in a law-suit. Most men would feel 
some awkwardness in hinting at sentiments conveyed by 
Swift in the most downright terms; to turn them into a 
poem would seem preposterous. Swift's poetry, however, 
is always plain matter of fact, and we may read Cadenus 
(which means of course Decanus) and Vanessa as Swift's 
deliberate and palpably sincere account of his own state 
of mind. Omitting a superfluous framework of mythol- 
ogy in the contemporary taste, w T e have a plain story of 
the relations of this new Heloise and Abelard. Vanessa, 
he tells us, united masculine accomplishments to feminine 
grace ; the fashionable fops (I use Swift's own words as 
much as possible) who tried to entertain her with the 



128 SWIFT. [chap. 

tattle of the day, stared when she replied by applications 
of Plutarch's morals. The ladies from the purlieus of St. 
James's found her reading Montaigne at her toilet, and 
were amazed by her ignorance of the fashions. Both 
were scandalized at the waste of such charms and talents 
due to the want of so called knowledge of the world. 
Meanwhile, Vanessa, not yet twenty, met and straightway 
admired Cadenus, though his eyes were dim with study 
and his health decayed. He had grown old in politics 
and wit ; was caressed by ministers ; dreaded and hated 
by half mankind, and had forgotten the arts by which he 
had once charmed ladies, though merely for amusement 
and to show his wit. 1 He did not understand what was 
love ; he behaved to Vanessa as a father might behave to 
a daughter : 

" That innocent delight he took 
To see the virgin mind her book 
Was but the master's secret joy 
In school to hear the finest boy." 

Vanessa, once the quickest of learners, grew distracted. 
He apologized for having bored her by his pedantry, and 
offered a last adieu. She then startled him by a confession. 
He had taught her, she said, that virtue should never be 
afraid of disclosures ; that noble minds were above com- 
mon maxims (just what he had said to Varina), and she 
therefore told him frankly that his lessons, aimed at her 
head, had reached her heart. Cadenus was utterly taken 
aback. Her words were too plain to be in jest. He was 
conscious of having never for a moment meant to be other 
than a teacher. Yet every one would suspect him of in- 
tentions to win her heart and her five thousand pounds. 

1 This simply repeats what he says in his first published letters 
about his flirtations at Leicester. 



vi.] STELLA AND VANESSA. 129 

He tried not to take things seriously. Vanessa, however, 
became eloquent. She said that he had taught her to love 
great men through their books; why should she not love 
the living reality ? Cadenus was flattered and half con- 
verted. He had never heard her talk so w 7 ell, and admit- 
ted that she had a most unfailing judgment and discerning 
head. He still maintained that his dignity and age put 
love out of the question, but he offered in return as much 
friendship as she pleased. She replies that she will now 
become tutor and teach him the lesson which he is so 
slow to learn. But — and here the revelation ends — 

" But what success Vanessa met 
Is to the world a secret yet." 1 

Vanessa loved Swift ; and Swift, it seems, allowed him- 
self to be loved. One phrase in a letter written to him 
during his stay at Dublin, in 1713, suggests the only hint 
of jealousy. If you are happy, she says, "it is ill-natured 
of you not to tell me so, except 'tis what is inconsistent 
with mine." Soon after Swift's final retirement to Ireland, 
Mrs. Vanhomrigh died. Her husband had left a small prop- 
erty at Celbridge. One son w r as dead ; the other behaved 
badly to his sisters ; the daughters were for a time in money 
difficulties, and it became convenient for them to retire to 
Ireland, where Vanessa ultimately settled at Celbridge. The 
two women who worshipped Swift w r ere thus almost in pres- 
ence of each other. The situation almost suggests comedy; 

1 The passage which contains this line was said by Orrery to cast 
an unmanly insinuation against Vanessa's virtue. As the accusation 
has been repeated, it is perhaps right to say that one fact sufficiently 
disproves its possibility. The poem was intended for Vanessa alone, 
and would never have appeared had it not been published after her 
death by her own direction. 



130 SWIFT. [chap. 

but, unfortunately, it was to take a most tragical and still 
partly mysterious development. 

The fragmentary correspondence between Swift and 
Vanessa establishes certain facts. Their intercourse was 
subject to restraints. He begs her, when he is starting 
for Dublin, to get her letters directed by some other hand, 
and to write nothing that may not be seen, for fear of 
" inconveniences." The post-office clerk surely would not 
be more attracted by Vanessa's hand than by that of such • 
a man as Lewis, a subordinate of Harley's, who had for- 
merly forwarded her letters. He adds that if she comes 
to Ireland he will see her very seldom. " It is not a place 
for freedom, but everything is known in a week and mag- 
nified a hundred times." Poor Vanessa soon finds the truth 
of this. She complains that she is amongst " strange, pry- 
ing, deceitful people ;" that he flies her, and will give no 
reason except that they are amongst fools and must sub- 
mit. His reproofs are terrible to her. " If you continue 
to treat me as you do," she says soon after, " you will not 
be made uneasy by me long." She would rather have 
borne the rack than those "killing, killing words" of his. 
She writes instead of speaking, because when she ventures 
to complain in person " you are angry, and there is some- 
thing in your look so awful that it shakes me dumb "—a 
memorable phrase in days soon to come. She protests 
that she says as little as she can. If he knew what she 
thought, he must be moved. The letter containing these 
phrases is dated 1714, and there are but a few scraps till 
1720 ; we gather that Vanessa submitted partly to the ne- 
cessities of the situation, and that this extreme tension was 
often relaxed. Yet she plainly could not resign herself or 
suppress her passion. Two letters in 1720 are painfully 
vehement. He has not seen her for ten long weeks, she 



vi.] STELLA AND VANESSA. 131 

says in her first, and she has only had one letter and one 
little note with an excuse. She will sink under his " pro- 
digious neglect." Time or accident cannot lessen her in- 
expressible passion. " Put my passion under the utmost 
restraint; send me as distant from you as the earth will 
allow, yet you cannot banish those charming ideas which 
will stick by me whilst I have the use of memory. Nor 
is the love I bear you only seated in my soul, for there is 
not a single atom of my frame that is not blended with it." 
She thinks him changed, and entreats him not to suffer her 
to " live a life like a languishing death, which is the only 
life I can lead, if you have lost any of your tenderness for 
me." The following letter is even more passionate. She 
passes days in sighing and nights in watching and think- 
ing of one who thinks not of her. She was born with 
"violent passions, 'which terminate all in one, that inex- 
pressible passion I have for you." If she could guess at 
his thoughts, which is impossible (" for never any one liv- 
ing thought like you "), she would guess that he wishes her 
" religious " — that she might pay her devotions to heaven. 
" But that should not spare you, for was I an enthusiast, 
still you'd be the deity I should worship." " What marks 
are there of a deity but what you are to be known by 
— you are (at?) present everywhere; your dear image is 
always before my eyes. Sometimes you strike me with 
that prodigious awe, I tremble with fear; at other times 
a charming compassion shines through your countenance, 
which moves my soul. Is it not more reasonable to adore 
a radiant form one has seen than one only described V n 
The man who received such letters from a woman whom 

1 Compare Pope's Eloisa to Abelavd, which appeared in 1717. If 
Vanessa had read it, she might almost be suspected of borrowing ; 
but her phrases seem to be too genuine to justify the hypothesis. 



132 SWIFT. [chap. 

he at least admired and esteemed, who felt that to respond 
was to administer poison, and to fail to respond was to in- 
flict the severest pangs, must have been in the cruellest of 
dilemmas. Swift, we cannot doubt, was grieved and per- 
plexed. His letters imply embarrassment ; and, for the 
most part, take a lighter tone ; he suggests his universal 
panacea of exercise ; tells her to fly from the spleen in- 
stead of courting it ; to read diverting books, and so forth : 
advice more judicious, probably, than comforting. There 
are, however, some passages of a different tendency. There 
is a mutual understanding to use certain catch-w r ords which 
recall the " little language." He wishes that her letters were 
as hard to read as his, in case of accident. "A stroke 
thus . . . signifies everything that may be said to Cad, at 
the beginning and conclusion." And she uses this writ- 
ten caress, and signs herself — his own "Skinage." There 
are certain " questions," to which reference is occasionally 
made ; a kind of catechism, it seems, which he was ex- 
pected to address to himself at intervals, and the nature 
of which must be conjectured. He proposes to continue 
the Cadenus and Vanessa — a proposal which makes her 
happy beyond " expression " — and delights her by recall- 
ing a number of available incidents. He recurs to them 
in his last letter, and bids her "go over the scenes of 
Windsor, Cleveland Row, Rider Street, St. James's Street, 
Kensington, the Shrubbery, the Colonel in France, &c. 
Cad thinks often of these, especially on horseback, 1 as I 
am assured." This prosaic list of names recall, as we find, 
various old meetings. And, finally, one letter contains 
an avowal of a singular kind. " Soyez assuree," he says, 
after advising her " to quit this scoundrel island," " que 

1 Scott appropriately quotes Hotspur. The jihrase is apparently 
a hint at Swift's usual recipe of exercise. 



vi.] STELLA AND VANESSA. 133 

jamais personne du raonde a ete aimee, honoree, estimee, 
adoree par votre ami que vous." It seems as though he 
were compelled to throw her just a crumb of comfort 
here ; but, in the same breath, he has begged her to leave 
him forever. 

If Vanessa was ready to accept a " gown of forty-four," 
to overlook his infirmities in consideration of his fame, 
why should Swift have refused? Why condemn her to 
undergo this " languishing death" — a long agony of unre- 
quited passion? One answer is suggested by the report 
that Swift was secretly married to Stella in 1716. The 
fact is not proved uor disproved ;* nor, to my mind, is the 
question of its truth of much importance. The ceremony, 
if performed, was nothing but a ceremony. The only 
rational explanation of the fact, if it be taken for a fact, 

1 I cannot here discuss the evidence. The original statements are 
in Orrery, p. 22, &c. ; Delany, p. 52 ; Deem Swift, p. 93 ; Sheridan, p. 
282 ; Monck Berkeley, p. xxxvi. Scott accepted the marriage, and the 
evidence upon which he relied was criticised by Monck Mason, p. 297, 
&c. Monck Mason makes some good points, and especially dimin- 
ishes the value of the testimony of Bishop Berkeley, showing by 
dates that he could not have heard the story, as his grandson affirms, 
from Bishop Ashe, who is said to have performed the ceremony. It 
probably came, however, from Berkeley, who, we may add, was tutor 
to Ashe's son, and had special reasons for interest in the story. On 
the whole, the argument for the marriage comes to this : that it was 
commonly reported by the end of Swift's life, that it was certainly 
believed by his intimate friend Delany, in all probability by the elder 
Sheridan and by Mrs. Whiteway. Mrs. Sican, who told the story to 
Sheridan, seems also to be a good witness. On the other hand, Dr. 
Lyon, a clergyman, who was one of Swift's guardians in his imbecil- 
ity, says that it was denied by Mrs. Dingley and by Mrs. Brent, Swift's 
old house-keeper, and by Stella's executors. The evidence seems to 
me very indecisive. Much of it may be dismissed as mere gossip, 
but a certain probability remains. 



134 SWIFT. [chap, 

must be that Swift, having resolved not to marry, gave 
Stella this security, that he would, at least, marry no one 
else. Though his anxiety to hide the connexion with Va- 
nessa may only mean a dread of idle tongues, it is at least 
highly probable that Stella was the person from whom he 
specially desired to keep it. Yet his poetical addresses to 
Stella upon her birthday (of which the first is dated 1719, 
and the last 1727) are clearly not the addresses of a lover. 
Both in form and substance they are even pointedly in- 
tended to express friendship instead of love. They read 
like an expansion of his avowal to Tisdall, that her charms 
for him, though for no one else, could not be diminished 
by her growing old without marriage. He addresses her 
with blunt affection, and tells her plainly of her growing 
size and waning beauty ; comments even upon her defects 
of temper, and seems expressly to deny that he loved her 
in the usual way : 

" Thou, Stella, wert no longer young 
When first for thee my harp I struug, 
Without one word of Cupid's darts, 
Of killing eyes and bleeding hearts ; 
With friendship and esteem possess'd, 
I ne'er admitted love a guest." 

We may almost say that he harps upon the theme of 
" friendship and esteem." His gratitude for her care of 
him is pathetically expressed ; he admires her with the 
devotion of a brother for the kindest of sisters ; his plain, 
prosaic lines become poetical, or perhaps something better ; 
but. there is an absence of the lover's strain which is only 
not, if not, ostentatious. 

The connexion with Stella, whatever its nature, gives 
the most intelligible explanation of his keeping Vanessa 



vi.] STELLA AXD VANESSA. 135 

at a distance. A collision between his two slaves might 
be disastrous. And, as the story goes (for we are every- 
where upon uncertain ground), it came. In 1721 poor 
Vanessa had lost her only sister 1 and companion : her 
brothers were already dead, and, in her solitude, she would 
naturally be more than ever eager for Swift's kindness. 
At last, in 1723, she wrote (it is said) a letter to Stella, 
and asked whether she was Swift's wife. 2 Stella replied that 
she was, and forwarded Vanessa's letter to Swift. How 
Swift could resent an attempt to force his wishes has 
been seen in the letter to Varina. He rode in a fury to 
Celbridge. His countenance, says Orrery, could be terri- 
bly expressive of the sterner passions. Prominent eyes — 
"azure as the heavens" (says Pope) — arched by bushy 
black eyebrows, could glare, we can believe from his por- 
traits, with the green fury of a cat's. Vanessa had spoken 
of the " something awful in his looks," and of his killing 
words. He now entered her room, silent with rage, threw 
down her letter on the table, and rode off. He had struck 
Vanessa's death-blow. She died soon afterwards, but lived 
long enough to revoke a will made in favour of Swift and 
leave her money between Judge Marshal and the famous 
Bishop Berkeley. Berkeley, it seems, had only seen her 
once in his life. 

The story of the last fatal interview has been denied. 
Vanessa's death, though she was under thirty-five, is less 
surprising when we remember that her younger sister 
and both her brothers had died before her ; and that her 
health had always been weak, and her life for some time 
a languishing death. That there was in any case a terribly 

1 Monde Mason, p. 310, note. 

2 This is Sheridan's story. Orrery speaks of the letter as written 
to Swift himself. 



136 SWIFT. [chap. 

tragic climax to the half-written romance of Cadenus and 
Vanessa is certain. Vanessa requested that the poem and 
the letters might be published by her executors. Berkeley 
suppressed the letters for the time, and they were not pub- 
lished in full until Scott's edition of Swift's works. 

Whatever the facts, Swift had reasons enough for bit- 
ter regret, if not for deep remorse. He retired to hide 
his head in some unknown retreat; absolute seclusion was 
the only solace to his gloomy, wounded spirit. After two 
months he returned, to resume his retired habits. A pe- 
riod followed, as w r e shall see in the next chapter, of fierce 
political excitement. For a time, too, he had a vague hope 
of escaping from his exile. An astonishing literary suc- 
cess increased his reputation. But another misfortune ap- 
proached, which crushed all hope of happiness in life. 

In 1726 Swift at last revisited England. He writes 
in July that he has for two months been anxious about 
Stella's health, and as usual feared the worst. He has seen 
through the disguises of a letter from Mrs. Dingley. His 
heart is so sunk that he will never be the same man again, 
but drag on a wretched life till it pleases God to call him 
away. Then in an agony of distress he contemplates her 
death; he says that he could not bear to be present; he 
should be a trouble to her, and the greatest torment to 
himself. He forces himself to add that her death must 
not take place at the deanery. He will not return to find 
her just dead or dying. " Nothing but extremity could 
make me so familiar with those terrible words applied to 
so dear a friend." "I think," he says in another letter, 
"that there is not a greater folly than that of entering 
into too strict a partnership or friendship with the loss 
of which a man must be absolutely miserable; but es- 
pecially [when the loss occurs] at an age when it is too 



yi.] STELLA AND VANESSA. 137 

late to engage in a new friendship." The morbid feeling 
which could withhold a man from attending a friend's 
deathbed, or allow him to regret the affection to which his 
pain was due, is but too characteristic of Swift's egoistic 
attachments. Yet we forgive the rash phrase, when we 
read his passionate expressions of agony. Swift returned 
to Ireland in the autumn, and Stella strup-p-led through the 
winter. He was again in England in the following sum- 
mer, and for a time in better spirits. But once more the 
news comes that Stella is probably on her deathbed ; and 
he replies in letters which we read as we listen to groans 
of a man in sorest agony. He keeps one letter for an 
hour before daring to open it. He does not wish to live 
to see the loss of the person for whose sake alone life was 
worth preserving. " What have I to do in the world ? I 
never was in such agonies as when I received your letter 
and had it in my pocket. I am able to hold up my sorry 
head no longer." In another distracted letter he repeats, 
in Latin, the desire that Stella shall not die in the deanery, 
for fear of malignant misinterpretations. If any marriage 
had taken place, the desire to conceal it had become a 
rooted passion. 

Swift returned to Ireland, to find Stella still living. It 
is said that in the last period of her life Swift offered to 
make the marriage public, and that she declined, saying 
that it was now too late. 1 She lingered till January 28, 
1728. He sat down the same night to write a few scat- 
tered reminiscences. He breaks down ; and writes again 

1 Scott heard this from Mrs. Whiteway's grandson. Sheridan 
tells the story as though Stella had begged for publicity, and Swift 
cruelly refused. Delany's statement (p. 56), which agrees with Mrs. 
"Whiteway's, appears to be on good authority, and, if true, proves the 
reality of the marriage. 



138 SWIFT. [chap. 

during the funeral, which he is too ill to attend. The 
fragmentary notes give us the most authentic account of 
Stella, and show, at least, what she appeared in the eyes 
of her lifelong friend and protector. We may believe 
that she was intelligent and charming, as we can be cer- 
tain that Swift loved her in every sense but one. A lock 
of her hair was preserved in an envelope in which he had 
written one of those vivid phrases by which he still lives 
in our memory : " Only a woman's hair.'''' What does it 
mean ? Our interpretation will depend partly upon what 
we can see ourselves in a lock of hair. But I think that 
any one who judges Swift fairly will read in those four 
words the most intense utterance of tender affection, and 
of pathetic yearning for the irrevocable past, strangely 
blended with a bitterness springing, not from remorse, but 
indignation at the cruel tragi-comedy of life. The Des- 
tinies laugh at us whilst they torture us ; they make cruel 
scourges of trifles, and extract the bitterest passion from 
our best affections. 

Swift was left alone. Before we pass on we must 
briefly touch the problems of this strange history. It was 
a natural guess that some mysterious cause condemned 
Swift to his loneliness. A story is told by Scott (on poor 
evidence) that Delany went to Archbishop King's library 
about the time of the supposed marriage. As he entered 
Swift rushed out with a distracted countenance. King 
was in tears, and said to Delany, " You have just met the 
most unhappy man on earth ; but on the subject of his 
wretchedness you must never ask a question." This has 
been connected with a guess made by somebody that 
Swift had discovered Stella to be his natural sister. It 
can be shown conclusively that this is impossible ; and 
the story must be left as picturesque but too hopelessly 



▼i.] STELLA AND VANESSA. 139 

vague to gratify any inference whatever. We know with- 
out it that Swift was unhappy, but we know nothing of 
any definite cause. 

Another view is that there is no mystery. Swift, it is 
said, retained through life the position of Stella's " guide, 
philosopher, and friend," and was never anything more. 
Stella's address to Swift (on his birthday, 1721) may be 
taken to confirm this theory. It says with a plainness 
like his own that he had taught her to despise beauty 
and hold her empire by virtue and sense. Yet the theory 
is in itself strange. The less love entered into Swift's 
relations to Stella, the more difficult to explain his behav- 
iour to Vanessa. If he regarded Stella only as a daughter 
or a younger sister, and she returned the same feeling, he 
had no reason for making any mystery about the woman 
who would not in that case be a rival. If, again, we ac- 
cept this view, we naturally ask why Swift " never admitted 
love a guest." He simply continued, it is suggested, to 
behave as teacher to pupil. He thought of her when she 
was a woman as he had thought of her when she was a 
child of eight years old. But it is singular that a man 
should be able to preserve such a relation. It is quite 
true that a connexion of this kind may blind a man to 
its probable consequences ; but it is contrary to ordinary 
experience that it should render the consequences less 
probable. The relation might explain why Swift should 
be off his guard; but could hardly act as a safeguard. 
An ordinary man who was on such terms with a beautiful 
girl as are revealed in the Journal to Stella would have 
ended by falling in love with her. Why did not Swift ? 
We can only reply by remembering the "coldness" of 
temper to which he refers in his first letter, and his asser- 
tion that he did not understand love, and that his frequent 



140 SWIFT. [chap. 

flirtations never meant more than a desire for distraction. 
The affair with Varina is an exception ; but there are 
grounds for holding that Swift was constitutionally indis- 
posed to the passion of love. The absence of any traces 
of such a passion from writings conspicuous for their 
amazing sincerity, and (it is added) for their freedoms 
of another kind, has been often noticed as a confirmation 
of this hypothesis. Yet it must be said that Swift could 
be strictly reticent about his strongest feelings — and was 
specially cautious, for whatever reason, in regard to his 
relation with Stella. 1 

If Swift constitutionally differed from other men, we 
have some explanation of his strange conduct. But we 
must take into account other circumstances. Swift had 
very obvious motives for not marrying. In the first place, 
he gradually became almost a monomaniac upon the ques- 
tion of money. His hatred of wasting a penny unneces- 
sarily began at Trinity College, and is prominent in all his 
letters and journals. It coloured even his politics, for a 
conviction that the nation was hopelessly ruined is one of 
his strongest prejudices. He kept accounts down to half- 
pence, and rejoices at every saving of a shilling. The 
passion was not the vulgar desire for wealth of the ordi- 
nary miser. It sprang from the conviction stored up 
in all his aspirations that money meant independence. 
" Wealth," he says, " is liberty ; and liberty is a blessing- 
fittest for a philosopher — and Gay is a slave just by two 
thousand pounds too little." 2 Gay was a duchess's lap- 
dog; Swift, with all his troubles, at least a free man. 
Like all Swift's prejudices, this became a fixed idea which 

1 Besides Scott's remarks (see vol. v. of his life) see Orrery, Let- 
ter 10 ; Deane Swift, p. 93 ; Sheridan, p. 297. 

2 Letter to Pope, July 16, 1728. 



tl] STELLA AND VANESSA. 141 

was always gathering strength. He did not love money 
for its own sake. He was even magnificent in his gener- 
osity. He scorned to receive money for his writings ; he 
abandoned the profit to his printers in compensation for 
the risks they ran, or gave it to his friends. His charity 
was splendid relatively to his means. In later years he 
lived on a third of his income, gave away a third, and 
saved the remaining third for his posthumous charity 1 — 
and posthumous charity which involves present saving is 
charity of the most unquestionable kind. His principle 
was, that by reducing his expenditure to the lowest possi- 
ble point, he secured his independence, and could then 
make a generous use of the remainder. Until he had re- 
ceived his deanery, however, he could only make both ends 
meet. Marriage would, therefore, have meant poverty, 
probably dependence, and the complete sacrifice of his 
ambition. 

If under these circumstances Swift had become engaged 
to Stella upon Temple's death, he would have been doing 
what was regularly done by fellows of colleges under the 
old system. There is, however, no trace of such an en- 
gagement. It would be in keeping with Swift's character, 
if we should suppose that he shrank from the bondage of 
an engagement ; that he designed to marry Stella as soon 
as he should achieve a satisfactory position, and meanwhile 
trusted to his influence over her, and thought that he was 
doing her justice by leaving her at liberty to marry if she 
chose. The close connexion must have been injurious to 
Stella's prospects of a match ; but it continued only by 
her choice. If this were, in fact, the case, it is still easy 
to understand why Swift did not marry upon becoming 
Dean. He felt himself, I have said, to be a broken man. 
1 Sheridan, p. 23. 



142 SWIFT. [chap. 

His prospects were rained, and bis health precarious. 
This last fact requires to be remembered in every estimate 
of Swift's character. His life was passed under a Damo- 
cles' sword. He suffered from a distressing illness which 
he attributed to an indigestion produced by an over-con- 
sumption of fruit at Temple's when he was a little over 
twenty-one. The main symptoms were a giddiness, which 
frequently attacked him, and was accompanied by deaf- 
ness. It is quite recently that the true nature of the com- 
plaint has been identified. Dr. Bucknill 1 seems to prove 
that the symptoms are those of " Labyrinthine vertigo," 
or Meniere's disease, so called because discovered by Me- 
niere in 1861. The references to his sufferings, brought 
together by Sir William Wilde in 1849, 8 are frequent in 
all his writings. It tormented him for days, weeks, and 
months, gradually becoming more permanent in later years. 
In 1731 he tells Gay that his giddiness attacks him con- 
stantly, though it is less violent than of old ; and in 1736 
he says that it is continual. From a much earlier period 
it had alarmed and distressed him. Some pathetic entries 
are given by Mr. Forster from one of his note-books: 
" December 5 (1708).— Horribly sick. 12th.— Much bet- 
ter, thank God and M.D.'s prayers. . . . April 2d (1709). 
Small giddy fit and swimming in the head. M.D. and 
God help me. . . . July, 1710. — Terrible fit. God knows 
what may be the event. Better towards the end." The 
terrible anxiety, always in the background, must count for 
much in Swift's gloomy despondency. Though he seems 
always to have spoken of the fruit as the cause, he must 
have had misgivings as to the nature and result. Dr. 
Bucknill tells us that it was not necessarily connected 

1 Brain for January, 1882. 

3 Closing Years of Dean SwifVs Life. 



vi.] STELLA AND VANESSA. 143 

with the disease of the brain which ultimately came upon 
him ; but he may well have thought that this disorder of 
the head was prophetic of such an end. It was, probably, 
in 1717 that he said to Young, of the Night Thoughts, "I 
shall be like that tree : I shall die at the top." A man 
haunted perpetually by such forebodings might well think 
that marriage was not for him. In Cadenus and Vanessa 
he insists upon his declining years with an emphasis which 
seems excessive even from a man of forty-four (in 1713 
he was really forty-five) to a girl of twenty. In a singu- 
lar poem called the Progress of Marriage he treats the 
supposed case of a divine of fifty-two marrying a lively 
girl of fashion, and speaks with his usual plainness of the 
probable consequences of such folly. We cannot doubt 
that here as elsewhere he is thinking of himself. He was 
fifty-two when receiving the passionate love-letters of Va- 
nessa ; and the poem seems to be specially significant. 

This is one of those cases in which we feel that even 
biographers are not omniscient ; and I must leave it to my 
readers to choose their own theory, only suggesting that 
readers too are fallible. But we may still ask what judg- 
ment is to be passed upon Swift's conduct. Both Stella 
and Vanessa suffered from coming within the sphere of 
Swift's imperious attraction. Stella enjoyed his friendship 
through her life at the cost of a partial isolation from 
ordinary domestic happiness. She might and probably 
did regard his friendship as a fall equivalent for the sacri- 
fice. It is one of the cases in which, if the actors be our 
contemporaries, we hold that outsiders are incompetent to 
form a judgment, as none but the principals can really 
know the facts. Is it better to be the most intimate 
friend of a man of genius or the wife of a commonplace 
Tisdall ? If Stella chose, and chose freely, it is hard to say 
7* 



144 SWIFT. [chap. yi. 

that she was mistaken, or to blame Swift for a fascination 
which he could not bat exercise. The tragedy of Vanessa 
suggests rather different reflections. Swift's duty was 
plain. Granting what seems to be probable, that Vanessa's 
passion took him by surprise, and that he thought himself 
disqualified for marriage by infirmity and weariness of life, 
he should have made his decision perfectly plain. He 
should have forbidden any clandestine relations. Furtive 
caresses — even on paper — understandings to carry on a 
private correspondence, fond references to old meetings, 
were obviously calculated to encourage her passion. He 
should not only have pronounced it to be hopeless, but 
made her, at whatever cost, recognize the hopelessness. 
This is where Swift's strength seems to have failed him. 
He was not intentionally cruel ; he could not foresee the 
fatal event; he tried to put her aside, and he felt the 
" shame, disappointment, grief, surprise," of which he 
speaks on the avowal of her love. He gave her the most 
judicious advice, and tried to persuade her to accept it. 
But he did not make it effectual. He shrank from inflict- 
ing pain upon her and upon himself. He could not de- 
prive himself of the sympathy which soothed his gloomy 
melancholy. His affection was never free from the egoistic 
element which prevented him from acting unequivocally, 
as an impartial spectator would have advised him to act, or 
as he would have advised another to act in a similar case. 
And therefore, when the crisis came, the very strength of 
his affection produced an explosion of selfish wrath, and 
he escaped from the intolerable position by striking down 
the woman whom he loved, and whose love for him had 
become a burden. The wrath was not the less fatal be- 
cause it was half composed of remorse, and the energy of 
the explosion proportioned to the strength of the feeling 
which had held it in check. 



CHAPTER VII. 
wood's halfpence. 

In one of Scott's finest novels the old Cameronian preacher, 
who had been left for dead by Claverhouse's troopers, 
suddenly rises to confront his conquerors, and spends his 
last breath in denouncing the oppressors of the saints. 
Even such an apparition was Jonathan Swift to comfort- 
able "Whigs who were flourishing in the place of Harley 
and St. John, when, after ten years' quiescence, he sud- 
denly stepped into the political arena. After the first 
crushing fall he had abandoned partial hope, and con- 
tented himself with establishing supremacy in his chap- 
ter. But undying wrath smouldered in his breast till time 
came for an outburst. 

No man had ever learnt more thoroughly the lesson, 
" Put not your faith in princes ;" or had been impressed 
with a lower estimate of the wisdom displayed by the 
rulers of the world. He had been behind the scenes, and 
knew that the wisdom of great ministers meant just enough 
cunning to court the ruin which a little common sense 
would have avoided. Corruption w r as at the prow and 
folly at the helm. The selfish ring which he had de- 
nounced so fiercely had triumphed. It had triumphed, as 
he held, by flattering the new dynasty, hoodwinking the 
nation, and maligning its antagonists. The cynical theory 



146 SWIFT. [chap. 

of politics was not for him, as for some comfortable 
cynics, an abstract proposition, which mattered very little 
to a sensible man, but was embodied in the bitter wrath 
with which he regarded his triumphant adversaries. Pes- 
simism is perfectly compatible with bland enjoyment of 
the good things in a bad w T orld ; but Swift's pessimism 
was not of this type. It meant energetic hatred of 
definite things and people who were always before him. 

"With this feeling he had come to Ireland ; and Ireland 
— I am speaking of a century and a half ago — was the 
opprobrium of English statesmanship. There Swift had 
(or thought he had) always before him a concrete example 
of the basest form of tyranny. By Ireland, I have said, 
Swift meant, in the first place, the English in Ireland. 
In the last years of his sanity he protested indignantly 
against the confusion between the " savage old Irish " 
and the English gentry, who, he said, were much better 
bred, spoke better English, and were more civilized than 
the inhabitants of many English counties. 1 He retained 
to the end of his life his antipathy to the Scotch colonists. 
He opposed their demand for political equality as fiercely 
in the last as in his first political utterances. He con- 
trasted them unfavourably 2 with the Catholics, who had, 
indeed, been driven to revolt by massacre and confiscation 
under Puritan rule, but who were now, he declared, " true 
Whigs, in the best and most proper sense of the word," 
and thoroughly loyal to the house of Hanover. Had 
there been a danger of a Catholic revolt, Swift's feelings 
might have been different; but he always held that they 
were "as inconsiderable as the women and children," 
mere "hewers of wood and drawers of water," "out of all 

1 Letter to Pope, July 13, 1737. 

2 Catholic Reasons for Repealing the Test. 



vil] WOOD'S HALFPENCE. 147 

capacity of doing any mischief, if they were ever so well 
inclined." 1 Looking at them in this way, he felt a sin- 
cere compassion for their misery and a bitter resentment 
against their oppressors. The English, he said, in a 
remarkable letter, 2 should be ashamed of their reproaches 
of Irish dulness, ignorance, and cowardice. Those defects 
were the products of slavery. He declared that the poor 
cottagers had " a much better natural taste for good sense, 
humour, and raillery than ever I observed among people 
of the like sort in England. But the millions of oppres- 
sions they lie under, the tyranny of their landlords, the 
ridiculous zeal of their priests, and the misery of the 
whole nation, have been enough to damp the best spirits 
under the sun." Such a view is now commonplace 
enough. It was then a heresy to English statesmen, who 
thought that nobody but a Papist or a Jacobite could ob- 
ject to the tyranny of Whigs. 

Swift's diagnosis of the chronic Irish disease was thor- 
oughly political. He considered that Irish misery sprang 
from the subjection to a government not intentionally 
cruel, but absolutely selfish ; to which the Irish revenue 
meant so much convenient political plunder, and which 
acted on the principle quoted from Cowley, that the 
happiness of Ireland should not weigh against the " least 
conveniency " of England. He summed up his views in a 
remarkable letter, 3 to be presently mentioned, the substance 
of which had been orally communicated to Walpole. He 
said to Walpole, as he said in every published utterance : 
first, that the colonists were still Englishmen, and entitled 
to English rights ; secondly, that their trade was delib- 

1 Letters on Sacramental Test in 1738. 

* To Sir Charles Wigan, July, 1732. 

3 To Lord Peterborough, April 21, 1726. 



148 SWIFT. [chap. 

erately crushed, purely for the benefit of the English 
of England ; thirdly, that all valuable preferments were 
bestowed upon men born in England, as a matter of 
course ; and, finally, that in consequence of this the 
upper classes, deprived of all other openings, were forced 
to rack-rent their tenants to such a degree that not one 
farmer in the kingdom out of a hundred " could afford 
shoes or stockings to his children, or to eat flesh or drink 
anything better than sour milk and water twice in a year ; 
so that the whole country, except the Scotch plantation 
in the north, is a scene of misery and desolation hardly 
to be matched on this side Lapland." A modern reformer 
would give the first and chief place to this social misery. 
It is characteristic that Swift comes to it as a consequence 
from the injustice to his own class : as, again, that he 
appeals to Walpole, not on the simple ground that the 
people are wretched, but on the ground that they will 
be soon unable to pay the tribute to England, which he 
reckons at a million a year. But his conclusion might be 
accepted by any Irish patriot. Whatever, he says, can 
make a country poor and despicable concurs in the case 
of Ireland. The nation is controlled by laws to which 
it does not consent ; disowned by its brethren and coun- 
trymen ; refused the liberty of trading even in its natural 
commodities ; forced to seek for justice many hundred 
miles by sea and land; rendered in a manner incapable 
of serving the King and country in any place of honour, 
trust, or profit ; whilst the governors have no sympathy 
with the governed, except what may occasionally arise 
from the sense of justice and philanthropy. 

I am not to ask how far Swift was right in his judg- 
ments. Every line which he wrote shows that he was 
thoroughly sincere and profoundly stirred by his convic- 



vil] WOOD'S HALFPENCE. 149 

tions. A remarkable pamphlet, published in 1720, con- 
tained his first utterance upon the subject. It is an ex- 
hortation to the Irish to use only Irish manufactures. 
He applies to Ireland the fable of Arachne and Pallas. 
The goddess, indignant at being equalled in spinning, 
turned her rival into a spider, to spin forever out of her 
own bowels in a narrow compass. He always, he says, 
pitied poor Arachne for so cruel and unjust a sentence, 
" which, however, is fully executed upon us by England 
with further additions of rigour and severity; for the 
greatest part of our bowels and vitals is extracted, without 
allowing us the liberty of spinning and weaving them." 
Swift of course accepts the economic fallacy equally taken 
for granted by his opponents, and fails to see that Eng- 
land and Ireland injured themselves as well as each other 
by refusing to interchange their productions. But he 
utters forcibly his righteous indignation against the con- 
temptuous injustice of the English rulers, in consequence 
of which the "miserable people" are being reduced " to 
a worse condition than the peasants in France, or the vas- 
sals in Germany and Poland." Slaves, he says, have a 
natural disposition to be tyrants ; and he himself, when 
his betters give him a kick, is apt to revenge it with six 
upon his footman. That is how the landlords treat their 
tenantry. 

The printer of this pamphlet was prosecuted. The 
chief justice (Whitshed) sent back the jury nine times 
and kept them eleven hours before they would consent to 
bring in a " special verdict." The unpopularity of the 
prosecution became so great that it was at last dropped. 
Four years afterwards a more violent agitation broke out. 
A patent had been given to a certain William "Wood for 
supplying Ireland with a copper coinage. Many com- 



150 SWIFT. [chap. 

plaints had been made, and in September, 1723, addresses 
were voted by the Irish Houses of Parliament, declaring 
that the patent had been obtained by clandestine and false 
representations; that it was mischievous to the country; 
and that Wood had been guilty of frauds in his coinage. 
They were pacified by vague promises.; but Walpole went 
on with the scheme on the strength of a favourable report 
of a committee of the Privy Council ; and the excitement 
was already serious when (in 1724) Swift published the 
Drapier's Letters, which give him his chief title to emi- 
nence as a patriotic agitator. 

Swift either shared or took advantage of the general 
belief that the mysteries of the currency are unfathoma- 
ble to the human intelligence. They have to do with 
that world of financial magic in which wealth may be 
made out of paper, and all ordinary relations of cause and 
effect are suspended. There is, however, no real mystery 
about the halfpence. The small coins which do not form 
part of the legal tender may be considered primarily as 
counters. A penny is a penny, so long as twelve are 
change for a shilling. It is not in the least necessary for 
this purpose that the copper contained in the twelve 
penny pieces should be worth or nearly worth a shilling. 
A sovereign can never be worth much more than the gold 
of which it is made. But at the present day bronze 
worth only twopence is coined into twelve penny pieces. 1 
The coined bronze is worth six times as much as the un- 
coined. The small coins must have some intrinsic value 
to deter forgery, and must be made of good materials to 
stand wear and tear. If these conditions be observed, and 
a proper number be issued, the value of the penny will be 

1 The ton of bronze, I am informed, is coined into 108,000 pence; 
that is, 450/. The metal is worth about 74/. 



til] WOOD'S HALFPE.YCE. 151 

no more affected by the value of the copper than the 
value of the banknote by that of the paper on which it is 
written. This opinion assumes that the copper coins can- 
not be offered or demanded in payment of any but tri- 
fling' debts. The halfpence coined by Wood seem to have 
fulfilled these conditions, and as copper worth twopence 
(on the lowest computation) was coined into ten half- 
pence, worth fivepence, their intrinsic value was more 
than double that of modern halfpence. 

The halfpence, then, were not objectionable upon this 
ground. Nay, it would have been wasteful to make them 
more valuable. It would have been as foolish to use more 
copper for the pence as to make the works of a watch of 
gold if brass is equally durable and convenient. But an- 
other consequence is equally clear. The effect of Wood's 
patent was that a mass of copper worth about 60,000/.* 
became worth 100,800/. in the shape of halfpenny pieces. 
There was, therefore, a balance of about 40,000/. to pay 
for the expenses of coinage. It would have been waste to 
get rid of this by putting more copper in the coins ; but, 
if so large a profit arose from the transaction, it would go 
to somebody. At the present day it would be brought 
into the national treasury. This was not the way in which 
business was done in Ireland. Wood was to pay 1000/. a 
year for fourteen years to the Crown. 2 But 14,000/. still 
leaves a large margin for profit. What was to become of 

1 Simon, in his work on the Irish coinage, makes the profit 
60,000^. ; but he reckons the copper at Is. a pound, whereas from 
the Report of the Privy Council it would seem to be properly Is. 6d. 
a pound. Swift and most later writers say 108,000/., but the right 
sum is 100,800^. — 360 tons coined into 2s. 6d. a pound. 

2 Monck Mason says only 300£. a year, but this is the sum men- 
tioned in the Report and by Swift. 



152 SWIFT. [chap. 

it ? According to the admiring biographer of Sir R. Wal- 
pole the patent had been originally given by Lord Sun- 
derland to the Duchess of Kendal, a lady whom the King 
delighted to honour. She already received 3000Z. a year 
in pensions upon the Irish Establishment, and she sold 
this patent to Wood for 10,000/. Enough was still left 
to give Wood a handsome profit; as in transactions of 
this kind every accomplice in a dirty business expects to 
be well paid. So handsome, indeed, was the profit that 
Wood received ultimately a pension of 3000Z. for eight 
years — 24,000/., that is — in consideration of abandoning 
the patent. It was right and proper that a profit should 
be made on the transaction, but shameful that it should be 
divided between the King's mistress and William Wood, 
and that the bargain should be struck without consulting 
the Irish representatives, and maintained in spite of their 
protests. The Duchess of Kendal was to be allowed to take 
a share of the wretched halfpence in the pocket of every 
Irish beggar. A more disgraceful transaction could hardly 
be imagined, or one more calculated to justify Swift's view 
of the selfishness and corruption of the English rulers. 

Swift saw his chance, and went to work in characteristic 
fashion, with unscrupulous audacity of statement, guided 
by the keenest strategical instinct. He struck at the heart 
as vigorously as he had done in the Examiner, but with re- 
sentment sharpened by ten years of exile. It was not safe 
to speak of the Duchess of Kendal's share in the transac- 
tion, though the story, as poor Archdeacon Coxe patheti- 
cally declares, was industriously propagated. But the case 
against Wood was all the stronger. Is he so wicked, asks 
Swift, as to suppose that a nation is to be ruined that he 
may gain three or four score thousand pounds? Hampden 
went to prison, he says, rather than pay a few shillings 



TIL ] WOOD'S HALFPENCE. 153 

wrongfully; I, says Swift, would rather be hanged than 
have all my " property taxed at seventeen shillings in the 
pound at the arbitrary will and pleasure of the venerable 
Mr. Wood." A simple constitutional precedent might 
rouse a Hampden ; but to stir a popular agitation it is as 
well to show that the evil actually inflicted is gigantic, in- 
dependently of possible results. It requires, indeed, some 
audacity to prove that debasement of the copper currency 
can amount to a tax of seventeen shillings in the pound on 
all property. Here, however, Swift might simply throw the 
reins upon the neck of his fancy. Anybody may make 
any inferences he pleases in the mysterious regions of cur- 
rency ; and no inferences, it seems, were too audacious for 
his hearers, though we are left to doubt how far Swift's 
wrath had generated delusions in his ow r n mind, and how 
far he perceived that other minds were ready to be de- 
luded. He revels in prophesying the most extravagant 
consequences. The country will be undone ; the tenants 
will not be able to pay their rents; " the farmers must rob, 
or beg, or leave the country ; the shopkeepers in this and 
every other town must break or starve; the squire will 
hoard up all his good money to send to England and keep 
some poor tailor or weaver in his house, who will be glad 
to get bread at any rate." 1 Concrete facts are given to 
help the imagination. Squire Connolly must have 250 
horses to bring his half-yearly rents to town ; and the 
poor man will have to pay thirty-six of Wood's halfpence 
to get a quart of twopenny ale. 

How is this proved ? One argument is a sufficient speci- 
men. Nobody, according to the patent, was to be forced 
to take Wood's halfpence ; nor could any one be obliged 
to receive more than fivepence halfpenny in any one pay- 
1 Letter I. 



154 SWIFT. [chap. 

merit. This, of course, meant that the halfpence could 
only be used as change, and a man must pay his debts in 
silver or gold whenever it was possible to use a sixpence. 
It upsets Swift's statement about Squire Connolly's rents. 
But Swift is equal to the emergency. The rule means, 
he says, that every man must take fivepence halfpenny in 
every payment, if it be offered; which, on the next page, 
becomes simply in every payment ; therefore, making an 
easy assumption or two, he reckons that you will receive 
160/. a year in these halfpence; and therefore (by other 
assumptions) lose 140/. a year. 1 It might have occurred to 
Swift, one would think, that both parties to the transaction 
could not possibly be losers. But he calmly assumes that 
the man who pays will lose in proportion to the increased 
number of coins ; and the man who receives, in proportion 
to the depreciated value of each coin. He does not see, 
or think it worth notice, that the two losses obviously 
counterbalance each other; and he has an easy road to 
prophesying absolute ruin for everybody. It would be 
almost as great a compliment to call this sophistry as to 
dignify with the name of satire a round assertion that an 
honest man is a cheat or a rogue. 

The real grievance, however, shows through the sham 
argument. " It is no loss of honour," thought Swift, " to 
submit to the lion ; but who, with the figure of a man, 
can think with patience of being devoured alive by a 
rat?" Why should Wood have this profit (even if more 
reasonably estimated) in defiance of the wishes of the 
nation? It is, says Swift, because he is an Englishman 
and has great friends. He proposes to meet the attempt 
by a general agreement not to take the halfpence. Briefly, 
the halfpence were to be " Boycotted." 
1 Letter II. 



til] WOOD'S HALFPENCE. 155 

Before this second letter was written the English minis- 
ters had become alarmed. A report of the Privy Council 
(July 24, 1724) defended the patent, but ended by recom- 
mending that the amount to be coined should be reduced 
to 40,000/. Carteret was sent out as Lord Lieutenant to 
get this compromise accepted. Swift replied by a third 
letter, arguing the question of the patent, which he can 
" never suppose," or, in other words, which everybody 
knew, to have been granted as a " job for the interest of 
some particular person." He vigorously asserts that the 
patent can never make it obligatory to accept the half- 
pence, and tells a story much to the purpose from old 
Leicester experience. The justices had reduced the price 
of ale to three-halfpence a quart. One of them, therefore, 
requested that they would make another order to appoint 
who should drink it, "for, by God," said he, "I will 
not." 

The argument thus naturally led to a further and more 
important question. The discussion as to the patent 
brought forward the question of right. Wood and his 
friends, according to Swift, had begun to declare that the 
resistance meant Jacobitism and rebellion ; they asserted 
that the Irish were ready to shake off their dependence 
upon the Crown of England. Swift took up the challenge 
and answered resolutely and eloquently. He took up the 
broadest ground. Ireland, he declared, depended upon 
England in no other sense than that in which England 
depended upon Ireland. Whoever thinks otherwise, he 
said, " I, M. B. despair, desire to be excepted ; for I 
declare, next under God, I depend only on the King my 
sovereign, and the laws of my own country. I am so far," 
he added, " from depending upon the people of England, 
that, if they should rebel, I would take arms and lose every 



156 SWIFT. [chap. 

drop of my blood to hinder the Pretender from being 
King of Ireland." 

It had been reported that somebody (Walpole presum- 
ably) had sworn to thrust the halfpence down the throats 
of the Irish. The remedy, replied Swift, is totally in your 
own hands, " and therefore I have digressed a little .... 
to let you see that by the laws of God, of nature, of 
nations, and of your own country, you are and ought to 
be as free a people as your brethren in England.' 7 As 
Swift had already said in the third letter, no one could 
believe that any English patent would stand half an hour 
after an address from the English Houses of Parliament 
such as that which had been passed against Wood's by the 
Irish Parliament. Whatever constitutional doubts might 
be raised, it was, therefore, come to be the plain question 
whether or not the English ministers should simply over- 
ride the wishes of the Irish nation. 

Carteret, upon landing, began by trying to suppress his 
adversary. A reward of SOQl. was offered for the dis- 
covery of the author of the fourth letter. A prosecution 
was ordered against the printer. Swift went to the levee 
of the Lord Lieutenant, and reproached him bitterly for 
his severity against a poor tradesman who had published 
papers for the good of his country. Carteret answered in 
a happy quotation from Virgil, a feat which always seems 
to have brought consolation to the statesman of that day: 

" Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt 
Moliri." 

Another story is more characteristic. Swift's butler had 
acted as his amanuensis, and absented himself one night 
whilst the proclamation was running. Swift thought that 
the butler was cither treacherous or presuming upon his 



vil] WOOD'S HALFPENCE. 157 

knowledge of the secret. As soon as the man returned 
he ordered him to strip off his livery and begone. "I ain 
in your power," he said, " and for that very reason I will 
not stand your insolence." The poor butler departed, but 
preserved his fidelity ; and Swift, when the tempest had 
blown over, rewarded him by appointing him verger in 
the cathedral. The grand jury threw out the bill against 
the printer in spite of all Whitshed's efforts ; they were 
discharged ; and the next grand jury presented "Wood's 
halfpence as a nuisance. Carteret gave w r ay, the patent 
was surrendered, and Swift might congratulate himself 
upon a complete victory. 

The conclusion is in one respect rather absurd. The 
Irish succeeded in rejecting a real benefit at the cost of 
paying Wood the profit which he would have made, had 
he been allowed to confer it. Another point must be 
admitted. Swift's audacious misstatements were success- 
ful for the time in rousing the spirit of the people. They 
have led, however, to a very erroneous estimate of the 
whole case. English statesmen and historians 1 have found 
it so easy to expose his errors that they have thought his 
whole case absurd. The grievance w 7 as not what it was 
represented; therefore it is argued that there was no 
grievance. The very essence of the case was that the Irish 
people were to be plundered by the German mistress ; and 
such plunder was possible because the English people, as 
Swift says, never thought of Ireland except when there 
was nothing else to be talked of in the coffee-houses. 2 
Owing to the conditions of the controversy this grievance 

1 See, for example, Lord Stanhope's account. For the other view 
see Mr. Lecky's History of the Eighteenth Century and Mr. Froude's 
English in Ireland. 

2 Letter IV. 



158 SWIFT. [chap. 

only came out gradually, and could never be fully stated. 
Swift could never do more than hint at the transaction. 
His letters (including three which appeared after the last 
mentioned, enforcing the same case) have often been cited 
as models of eloquence, and compared to Demosthenes. 
"We must make some deduction from this, as in the case 
of his former political pamphlets. . The intensity of his 
absorption in the immediate end deprives them of some 
literary merits ; and we, to whom the sophistries are pal- 
pable enough, are apt to resent them. Anybody can be 
effective in a way, if he chooses to lie boldly. Yet, in 
another sense, it is hard to over-praise the letters. They 
have in a high degree the peculiar stamp of Swift's genius : 
the vein of the most nervous common-sense and pithy 
assertion, with an undercurrent of intense passion, the 
more impressive because it is never allowed to exhale in 
mere rhetoric. 

Swift's success, the dauntless front which he had shown 
to the oppressor, made him the idol of his countrymen. 
A Drapier's Club was formed in his honour, which col- 
lected the letters and drank toasts and sang songs to 
celebrate their hero. In a sad letter to Pope, in 1737, he 
complains that none of his equals care for him ; but adds 
that as he walks the streets he has " a thousand hats and 
blessings upon old scores which those we call the gentry 
have forgot." The people received him as their cham- 
pion. When he returned from England, in 1726, bells 
were rung, bonfires lighted, and a guard of honour es- 
corted him to the deanery. Towns voted him their 
freedom and received him like a prince. When Walpole 
spoke of arresting him a prudent friend told the minister 
that the messenger would require a guard of ten thousand 
soldiers. Corporations asked his advice in elections, and 



vii.] WOOD'S HALFPENCE. 159 

the weavers appealed to him on questions about their trade. 
In one of his satires 1 Swift had attacked a certain Ser- 
jeant Bettes worth : 

11 Thus at the bar the booby Bettesworth, 
Though half-a-crown overpays his sweat's worth." 

Bettesworth called upon him with, as Swift reports, a knife 
in his pocket, and complained in such terms as to imply- 
some intention of personal violence. The neighbours in- 
stantly sent a deputation to the Dean, proposing to take 
vengeance upon Bettesworth ; and though he induced them 
to disperse peaceably, they formed a guard to watch the 
house ; and Bettesworth complained that his attack upon 
the Dean had lowered his professional income by 1200/. 
a year. A quaint example of his popularity is given by 
Sheridan. A great crowd had collected to see an eclipse. 
Swift thereupon sent out the bellman to give notice that 
the eclipse had been postponed by the Dean's orders, and 
the crowd dispersed. 

Influence with the people, however, could not bring 
Swift back to power. At one time there seemed to be a 
gleam of hope. Swift visited England twice in 1726 and 
1727. He paid long visits to his old friend Pope, and 
again met Bolingbroke, now returned from exile, and try- 
ing to make a place in English politics. Peterborough 
introduced the Dean to Walpole, to whom Swift detailed 
his views upon Irish politics. Walpole was the last man 
to set about a great reform from mere considerations of 
justice and philanthropy, and was not likely to trust a 
confidant of Bolingbroke. He w r as civil but indifferent. 
Swift, however, was introduced by his friends to Mrs. 
Howard, the mistress of the Prince of Wales, soon to be- 

1 " On the words Brother Protestants, &c." 
8 



100 SWIFT. [chap. 

come George II. The Princess, afterwards Queen Caro- 
line, ordered Swift to come and see her, and lie complied, 
as he says, after nine commands. He told her that she 
had lately seen a wild boy from Germany, and now he 
supposed she wanted to see a wild Dean from Ireland. 
Some civilities passed ; Swift offered some plaids of Irish 
manufacture, and the Princess promised some medals in 
return. When, in the next year, George I. died, the Op- 
position hoped great things from the change. Pulteney 
had tried to get Swift's powerful help for the Craftsman, 
the Opposition organ ; and the Opposition hoped to up- 
set Walpole. Swift, who had thought of going to France 
for his health, asked Mrs. Howard's advice. She recom- 
mended him to stay ; and he took the recommendation as 
amounting to a promise of support. He had some hopes 
of obtaining English preferment in exchange for his dean- 
ery in what he calls (in the date to one of his letters 1 ) 
" wretched Dublin in miserable Ireland." It soon ap- 
peared, however, that the mistress was powerless ; and that 
"Walpole was to be as firm as ever in his seat. Swift re- 
turned to Ireland, never again to leave it : to lose soon af- 
terwards his beloved Stella, and nurse an additional grudge 
against courts and favourites. 

The bitterness with which he resented Mrs. Howard's 
supposed faithlessness is painfully illustrative, in truth, of 
the morbid state of mind which was growing upon him. 
" You think," he says to Bolingbroke in 1729, " as I ought 
to think, that it is time for me to have done with the 
world ; and so I would, if I could get into a better before 
I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like 
a poisoned rat in a hole." That terrible phrase expresses 
but too vividly the state of mind which was now be- 
1 To Lord Stafford, November 20, 1725. 



vii.] WOOD'S HALFPENCE. 161 

coming familiar to him. Separated by death and absence 
from his best friends, and tormented by increasing illness, 
he looked out upon a state of things in which he could 
see no ground for hope. The resistance to Wood's half- 
pence had staved off immediate ruin, but had not cured 
the fundamental evil. Some tracts upon Irish affairs, 
written after the Drapier's Letters, sufficiently indicate his 
despairing vein. "I am," he says in 1737, when propos- 
ing some remedy for the swarms of beggars in Dublin, " a 
desponder by nature ;" and he has found out that the peo- 
ple will never stir themselves to remove a single grievance. 
His old prejudices were as keen as ever, and could dictate 
personal outbursts. He attacked the bishops bitterly for 
offering certain measures which in his view sacrificed the 
permanent interests of the Church to that of the actual 
occupants. He showed his own sincerity by refusing to 
take fines for leases which would have benefited himself 
at the expense of his successors. With equal earnestness 
he still clung to the Test Acts, and assailed the Protestant 
Dissenters with all his old bitterness, and ridiculed their 
claims to brotherhood with Churchmen. To the end he 
was a Churchman before everything. One of the last of 
his poetical performances was prompted by the sanction 
given by the Irish Parliament to an opposition to certain 
" titles of ejectment." He had defended the right of the 
Irish Parliament against English rulers ; but when it at- 
tacked the interests of his Church his fury showed itself 
in the most savage satire that he ever wrote, the Legion 
Club. It is an explosion of wrath tinged with madness : 

" Could I from the building's top 
Hear the rattling thunder drop, 
While the devil upon the roof 
(If the devil be thunder-proof) 



102 SWIFT. [chap. 

Should with poker fiery red 
Crack the stones and melt the lead, 
Drive them down on every skull 
When the den of thieves is full ; 
Quite destroy the harpies' nest, 
How might this our isle be blest V 

What follows fully keeps up to this level. Swift flings 
filth like a maniac, plunges into ferocious personalities, 
and ends fitly with the execration — 

" May their God, the devil, confound them I" 

He was seized with one of his fits whilst writing the poem, 
and was never afterwards capable of sustained composition. 
Some further pamphlets — especially one on the State 
of Ireland — repeat and enforce his views. One of them 
requires special mention. The Modest Proposal (written 
in 1729) for Preventing the Children of Poor People in 
Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or Country — 
the proposal being that they should be turned into articles 
of food — gives the very essence of Swift's feeling, and 
is one of the most tremendous pieces of satire in existence. 
It shows the quality already noticed. Swift is burning 
with a passion the glow of which makes other passions 
look cold, as it is said that some bright lights cause other 
illuminating objects to cast a shadow. Yet his face is 
absolutely grave, and he details his plan as calmly as a 
modern projector suggesting the importation of Australian 
meat. The superficial coolness may be revolting to ten- 
der-hearted people, and has, indeed, led to condemnation of 
the supposed ferocity of the author almost as surprising as 
the criticisms which can see in it nothing but an exquisite 
piece of humour. It is, in truth, fearful to read even now. 
Yet we can forgive and even sympathize when we take it 



til] WOOD'S HALFPENCE. 103 

for what it realty is — the most complete expression of 
burning indignation against intolerable wrongs. It utters, 
indeed, a serious conviction. " I confess myself," says 
Swift in a remarkable paper, 1 " to be touched with a very 
sensible pleasure when I hear of a mortality in any coun- 
try parish or village, where the wretches are forced to pay 
for a filthy cabin and two ridges of potatoes treble the 
worth ; brought up to steal and beg for want of work ; 
to whom death would be the best thing to be wished 
for, on account both of themselves and the public." He 
remarks in the same place on the lamentable contradic- 
tion presented in Ireland to the maxim that the " people 
are the riches of a nation," and the Modest Proposal is 
the fullest comment on this melancholy reflection. After 
many visionary proposals he has at last hit upon the plan, 
which has at least the advantage that by adopting it " we 
can incur no danger of disobliging England. For this 
kind of commodity will not bear exportation, the flesh be- 
ing of too tender a consistence to admit a long continuance 
in salt, although, perhaps, I could name a country which 
would be glad to eat up a whole nation without it." 

Swift once asked Delany 2 whether the " corruptions 
and villanies of men in power did not eat his flesh and 
exhaust his spirits?" " No," said Delany. " Why, how 
can you help it?" said Swift. " Because," replied Delany, 
" I am commanded to the contrary — -fret not thyself be- 
cause of the ungodly" That, like other wise maxims, is 
capable of an ambiguous application. As Delany took it, 
Swift might perhaps have replied that it was a very com- 
fortable maxim — for the ungodly. His own application of 
Scripture is different. It tells us, he says, in his proposal 
for using Irish manufactures, that " oppression makes a 
1 Maxims Controlled in Ireland. 2 Delany, p. 148. 



164 SWIFT. [chap. 

wise man mad." If, therefore, some men are not mad, it 
must be because they are not wise. In truth, it is charac- 
teristic of Swift that he could never learn the great lesson 
of submission even to the inevitable. He could not, like 
an easy-going Delany, submit to oppression which might 
possibly be resisted with success; but as little could he 
submit when all resistance was hopeless. His rage, which 
could find no better outlet, burnt inwardly and drove him 
mad. It is very interesting to compare Swift's w r rathful 
denunciations with Berkeley's treatment of the same before 
in the Querist (l735-'37). Berkeley is full of luminous 
suggestions upon economical questions which are entirely 
beyond Swift's mark. He is in a region quite above the 
sophistries of the Drapier's Letters. He sees equally the 
terrible grievance that no people in the world is so beggar- 
ly, wretched, and destitute as the common Irish. But he 
thinks all complaints against the English rule useless, and 
therefore foolish. If the English restrain our trade ill-ad- 
visedly, is it not, he asks, plainly our interest to accommodate 
ourselves to them ? (No. 136.) Have we not the advantage 
of English protection without sharing English responsibili- 
ties ? He asks " whether England doth not really love us 
and wish well to us as bone of her bone and flesh of her 
flesh? and whether it be not our part to cultivate this love 
and affection all manner of ways ?" (Nos. 322, 323.) One 
can fancy how Swift must have received this characteris- 
tic suggestion of the admirable Berkeley, who could not 
bring himself to think ill of any one. Berkeley's main 
contention is, no doubt, sound in itself, namely, that the 
welfare of the country really depended on the industry 
and economy of its inhabitants, and that such qualities 
would have made the Irish comfortable in spite of all 
English restrictions and Government abuses. But, then, 



vii.] WOOD'S HALFPENCE. 165 

Swift might well have answered that such general maxims 
are idle. It is all very well for divines to tell people to 
become good, and to find out that then they will be 
happy. But how are they to be made good ? Are the 
Irish intrinsically worse than other men, or is their lazi- 
ness and restlessness due to special and removable circum- 
stances ? In the latter case is there not more real value 
in attacking tangible evils than in propounding general 
maxims and calling upon all men to submit to oppression, 
and even to believe in the oppressor's good-will, in the 
name of Christian charity? To answer those questions 
would be to plunge into interminable and hopeless con- 
troversies. Meanwhile, Swift's fierce indignation against 
English oppression might almost as well have been directed 
against a law of nature for any immediate result. "Whether 
the rousing of the national spirit w 7 as any benefit is a ques- 
tion which I must leave to others. In any case, the work, 
however darkened by personal feeling or love of class-priv- 
ilege, expressed as hearty a hatred of oppression as ever 
animated a human bein^. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The winter of 1713-14 passed by Swift in England was 
full of anxiety and vexation. He found time, however, 
to join in a remarkable literary association. The so-called 
Scriblerus Club does not appear, indeed, to have had any 
definite organization. The rising young wits, Pope and 
Gay, both of them born in 1688, were already becoming 
famous, and were taken up by Swift, still in the zenith of 
his political power. Parnell, a few years their senior, had 
been introduced by Swift to Oxford as a convert from 
Whiggism. All three became intimate with Swift and 
Arbuthnot, the most learned and amiable of the whole 
circle of Swift's friends. Swift declared him to have 
every quality that could make a man amiable and useful, 
with but one defect — he had "a sort of slouch in his 
walk." He was loved and respected by every one, and was 
one of the most distinguished of the Brothers. Swift and 
Arbuthnot and their three juniors discussed literary plans 
in the midst of the growing political excitement. Even 
Oxford used, as Pope tells us, to amuse himself during 
the very crisis of his fate by scribbling verses and talking 
nonsense with the members of this informal club, and 
some doggerel lines exchanged with him remain as a speci- 
men — a poor one, it is to be hoped — of their intercourse. 



chap, tiil] M GULLIVER'S TRAVELS." 167 

The familiarity thus begun continued through the life of 
the members. Swift can haTe seen Tery little of Pope. 
He hardly made his acquaintance till the latter part of 
1713; they parted in the summer of 1714; and never 
met again except in Swift's two Tisits to England in 
1726-27. Yet their correspondence shows an affection 
which was, no doubt, heightened by the consciousness of 
each that the friendship of his most famous contemporary 
author w r as creditable ; but which, upon Swift's side, at 
least, was thoroughly sincere and cordial, and strengthened 
with ad\ r ancing years. 

The final cause of the club was supposed to be the 
composition of a joint-stock satire. We learn from an 
interesting letter 1 that Pope formed the original design ; 
though Swift thought that Arbuthnot was the only one 
capable of carrying it out. The scheme was to write the 
memoirs of an imaginary pedant, who had dabbled with 
equal wrong-headedness in all kinds of knowledge ; and 
thus recalls Swift's early performances — the Battle of the 
Books and the Tale of a Tub. Arbuthnot begs Swift to 
work upon it during his melancholy retirement at Let- 
combe. Swift had other things to occupy his mind ; and 
upon the dispersion of the party the club fell into abey- 
ance. Fragments of the original plan were carried out by 
Pope and Arbuthnot, and form part of the Miscellanies, 
to which Swift contributed a number of poetical scraps, 
published under Pope's direction in 1726-27. It seems 
probable that Gulliver originated in Swift's mind in the 
course of his meditations upon Scriblerus. The composi- 
tion of Gulliver was one of the occupations by which he 
amused himself after recovering from the great shock of 

1 It is in the Forster library, and, I believe, unpublished, in answer 
to Arbuthnot's letter mentioned in the text. 
8* 



168 SWIFT. [chap. 

his "exile." He worked, as he seems always to have 
done, slowly and intermittently. Part of Brobdingnag at 
least, as we learn from a letter of Vanessa's, was in exist- 
ence by 1722. Swift brought the whole manuscript to 
England in 1726, and it was published anonymously in 
the following winter. The success was instantaneous and 
overwhelming. " I will make over all my profits " (in a 
work then being published) "to you," writes Arbuthnot, 
" for the property of Gulliver } s Travels, which, I believe, 
will have as great a run as John Bunyan." The anticipa- 
tion was amply fulfilled. Gulliver's Travels is one of 
the very few books some knowledge of which may be 
fairly assumed in any one who reads anything. Yet some- 
thing; must be said of the secret of the astonishing success 
of this unique performance. 

One remark is obvious. Gulliver's Travels (omitting 
certain passages) is almost the most delightful children's 
book ever written. Yet it has been equally valued as an 
unrivalled satire. Old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, 
was " in raptures with it," says Gay, " and can dream of 
nothing else." She forgives his bitter attacks upon her 
party in consideration of his assault upon human nature. 
He gives, she declares, " the most accurate " (that is, of 
course the most scornful) " account of kings, ministers, 
bishops, and courts of justice that is possible to be writ." 
Another curious testimony may be noticed. Godwin, when 
tracing all evils to the baneful effects of government, de- 
clares that the author of Gulliver showed a " more pro- 
found insight into the true principles of political justice 
than any preceding or contemporary author." The play- 
ful form was unfortunate, thinks this grave philosopher, 
as blinding mankind to the "inestimable wisdom" of the 
work. This double triumph is remarkable. We may not 



tiil] "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS." 169 

share the opinions of the cynics of the day, or of the rev- 
olutionists of a later generation, but it is strange that they 
should be fascinated by a work which is studied with de- 
light, without the faintest suspicion of any ulterior meaning, 
by the infantile mind. 

The charm of Gulliver for the young depends upon an 
obvious quality, which is indicated in Swift's report of 
the criticism by an Irish bishop, who said that " the book 
was full of improbable -lies, and for his part he hardly 
believed a word of it." There is something pleasant in 
the intense gravity of the narrative, which recalls and may 
have been partly suggested by Robinson Crusoe, though 
it came naturally to Swift. I have already spoken of 
his delight in mystification, and the detailed realization of 
pure fiction seems to have been delightful in itself. The 
Partridge pamphlets and its various practical jokes are 
illustrations of a tendency which fell in with the spirit of 
the time, and of which Gulliver may be regarded as the 
highest manifestation. Swift's peculiarity is in the curious 
sobriety of fancy, which leads him to keep in his most 
daring flights upon the confines of the possible. In the 
imaginary travels of Lucian and Eabelais, to which Gul- 
liver is generally compared, we frankly take leave of the 
real world altogether. We are treated with arbitrary 
and monstrous combinations which may be amusing, but 
which do not challenge even a semblance of belief. In 
Gulliver this is so little the case that it can hardly be said 
in strictness that the fundamental assumptions are even 
impossible. Why should there not be creatures in hu- 
man form with whom, as in Lilliput, one of our inches 
represents a foot, or, as in Brobdingnag, one of our feet 
represents an inch ? The assumption is so modest that 
we are presented — it may be said — with a definite and 



1T0 SWIFT. [chap. 

soluble problem. We have not, as in other fictitious 
worlds, to deal with a state of things in which the imagi- 
nation is bewildered, but with one in which it is agreeably 
stimulated. We have certainly to consider an extreme and 
exceptional case, but one to which all the ordinary laws 
of human nature are still strictly applicable. In Vol- 
taire's trifle, Micromegas, we are presented to beings eight 
leagues in height and endowed with seventy-two senses. 
For Voltaire's purpose the stupendous exaggeration is 
necessary, for he wishes to insist upon the minuteness of 
human capacities. But the assumption, of course, dis- 
qualifies us from taking any intelligent interest in a region 
where no precedent is available for our guidance. We 
are in the air ; anything and everything is possible. But 
Swift modestly varies only one element in the problem. 
Imagine giants and dwarfs as tall as a house or as low as 
a footstool, and let us see what comes of it. That is a 
plain, almost a mathematical, problem ; and we can, there- 
fore, judge his success, and receive pleasure from the in- 
genuity and verisimilitude of his creations. 

"When you have once thought of big men and little 
men," said Johnson, perversely enough, " it is easy to do 
the rest." The first step might, perhaps, seem in this case 
to be the easiest; yet nobody ever thought of it before 
Swift, and nobody has ever had similar good fortune 
since. There is no other fictitious world the denizens of 
which have become so real for us, and which has supplied 
so many images familiar to every educated mind. But 
the apparent ease is due to the extreme consistency and 
sound judgment of Swift's realization. The conclusions 
follow so inevitably from the primary data that when 
they are once drawn we agree that they could not have 
been otherwise ; and infer, rashly, that anybody else could 



viil] "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS." 171 

have drawn them. It is as easy as lying ; but everybody 
who has seriously tried the experiment knows that even 
lying is by no means so easy as it appears at first sight. 
In fact, Swift's success is something unique. The charm- 
ing plausibility of every incident, throughout the two first 
parts, commends itself to children, who enjoy definite con- 
crete images, and are fascinated by a world which is at 
once full of marvels, surpassing Jack the Giant Killer and 
the wonders seen by Sindbad, and yet as obviously and un- 
deniably true as the adventures of Robinson Crusoe him- 
self. Nobody who has read the book can ever forget it ; 
and we may add that besides the childlike pleasure which 
arises from a distinct realization of a strange world of 
fancy, the two first books are sufficiently good-humoured. 
Swift seems to be amused, as well as amusing. They 
were probably written during the least intolerable part of 
his exile. The period of composition includes the years 
of the Vanessa tragedy and of the war of Wood's half- 
pence ; it w 7 as finished when Stella's illness was becoming 
constantly more threatening, and published little more 
than a year before her death. The last books show 
Swift's most savage temper ; but we may hope that, in 
spite of disease, disappointments, and a growing alienation 
from mankind, Swift could still enjoy an occasional piece 
of spontaneous, unadulterated fun. He could still forget 
his cares, and throw the reins on the neck of his fancy. 
At times there is a certain charm even in the characters. 
Every one has a liking for the giant maid-of-all-work, 
Glumdalelitch, w T hose affection for her plaything is a 
quaint inversion of the ordinary relations between Swift 
and his feminine adorers. The grave, stern, irascible man 
can relax after a sort, though his strange idiosyncrasy 
comes out as distinctly in his relaxation as in his passions. 



172 SWIFT. [chap. 

I will not dwell upon this aspect of Gulliver, which is 
obvious to every one. There is another question which 
we are forced to ask, and which is not very easy to an- 
swer. What does Gulliver mean? It is clearly a satire 
— but who and what are its objects? Swift states his 
own view very unequivocally. " I heartily hate and de- 
test that animal called man," he says, 1 " although I heart- 
ily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth." He declares 
that man is not an animal rationale, but only rationis 
capax ; and he then adds, "Upon this great foundation 
of misanthropy .... the whole building of my travels is 
erected." " If the world had but a dozen Arbuthnots in 
it," he says in the same letter, " I would burn my travels." 
He indulges in a similar reflection to Sheridan. 2 " Expect 
no more from man," he says, " than such an animal is ca- 
pable of, and you will every day find my description of 
Yahoos more resembling. You should think and deal 
with every man as a villain, without calling him so, or 
flying from him or valuing him less. This is an old true 
lesson." In spite of these avowals, of a kind which, in 
Sw 7 ift, must not be taken too literally, we find it rather 
hard to admit that the essence of Gulliver can be an ex- 
pression of this doctrine. The tone becomes morose and 
sombre, and even ferocious; but it has been disputed 
whether in any case it can be regarded simply as an 
utterance of misanthropy. 

Gulliver's Travels belongs to a literary genus full of 
grotesque and anomalous forms. Its form is derived from 
some of the imaginary travels of which Lucian's True His- 
tory — itself a burlesque of some early travellers' tales — is 
the first example. But it has an affinity also to such books 

1 Letter to Pope, September 29, 1725. 
' 2 Letter to Sheridan, September 11, 1725. 



yiil] "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS." 173 

as Bacon's Atlantis and More's Utopia; and, again, to 
later philosophical romances like Candide and Rasselas ; 
and not least, perhaps, to the ancient fables, such as Rey- 
nard the Fox, to which Swift refers in the Tale of a Tub. 
It may be compared, again, to the Pilgrim's Progress and 
the whole family of allegories. The full-blown allegory 
resembles the game of chess said to have been played by 
some ancient monarch, in which the pieces were replaced 
by real human beings. The movements of the actors were 
not determined by the passions proper to their character, 
but by the external set of rules imposed upon them by the 
game. The allegory is a kind of picture-writing, popular, 
like picture-writing at a certain stage of development, but 
wearisome at more cultivated periods, when we prefer to 
have abstract theories conveyed in abstract language, and 
limit the artist to the intrinsic meaning of the images in 
which he deals. The whole class of more or less allegorical 
writing has thus the peculiarity that something more is 
meant than meets the ear. Part of its meaning depends 
upon a tacit convention in virtue of which a beautiful 
woman, for example, is not simply a beautiful woman, but 
also a representative of Justice and Charity. And as any 
such convention is more or less arbitrary, we are often in 
perplexity to interpret the author's meaning, and also to 
judge of the propriety of the symbols. The allegorical 
intention, again, may be more or Jess present, and such a 
book as Gulliver must be regarded as lying somewhere 
between the allegory and the direct revelation of truth, 
which is more or less implied in the work of every 
genuine artist. Its true purpose has thus rather puzzled 
critics. Hazlitt 1 urges, for example, with his usual brill- 
iancy, that Swift's purpose was to " strip empty pride 
1 Lectures on the English Poets. 



174 SWIFT. [chap. 

and grandeur of the imposing air which external circum- 
stances throw around them." Swift, accordingly, varies 
the scale, so as to show the insignificance or the grossness 
of our self-love. He does this with " mathematical pre- 
cision ;" he tries an experiment upon human nature ; and 
with the result that "nothing solid, nothing valuable is 
left in his system but wisdom and virtue." So Gulliver's 
carrying off the fleet of Blef uscu is " a mortifying stroke, 
aimed at national glory." . " After that, we have only 
to consider which of the contending parties was in the 
right." 

Hazlitt naturally can see nothing misanthropical or in- 
nocent in such a conclusion. The mask of imposture is 
torn off the world, and only imposture can complain. This 
view, which has no doubt its truth, suggests some obvious 
doubts. We are not invited, as a matter of fact, to attend 
to the question of right and wrong, as between Lilliput and 
Blefuscu. The real sentiment in Swift is that a war be- 
tween these miserable pygmies is, in itself, contemptible; 
and therefore, as he infers, war between men six feet high 
is equally contemptible. The truth is that, although Swift's 
solution of the problem may be called mathematically pre- 
cise, the precision does not extend to the supposed argu- 
ment. If we insist upon treating the question as one of 
strict logic, the only conclusion which could be drawn from 
Gulliver is the very safe one that the interest of the human 
drama does not depend upon the size of the actors. A 
pygmy or a giant endowed with all our functions and 
thoughts would be exactly as interesting as a being of the 
normal stature. It does not require a journey to imaginary 
regions to teach us so much. And if we say that Swift has 
shown us in his pictures the real essence of human life, we 
only say for him what might bo said with equal force of 



Tin.] "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS." 175 

Shakspeare or Balzac, or any great artist. The bare proof 
that the essence is not dependent upon the external con- 
dition of size is superfluous and irrelevant ; and we must 
admit that Swift's method is childish, or that it does not 
adhere to this strict logical canon. 

Hazlitt, however, comes nearer the truth, as I think, 
when he says that Swift takes a view of human nature 
such as might be taken by a being of a higher sphere. 
That, at least, is his purpose ; only, as I think, he pursues 
it by a neglect of " scientific reasoning." The use of the 
machinery is simply to bring us into a congenial frame of 
mind. He strikes the key-note of contempt by his imagery 
of dwarfs and giants. We despise the petty quarrels of 
beings six inches high ; and therefore we are prepared to 
despise the wars carried on by a Marlborough and a Eugene. 
We transfer the contempt based upon mere size to the mo- 
tives, which are the same in big men and little. The argu- 
ment, if argument there be, is a fallacy; but it is equally 
efficacious for the feelings. You see the pettiness and 
cruelty of the Lilliputians, who want to conquer an em- 
pire defended by toy-ships ; and you are tacitly invited to 
consider whether the bigness of French men-of-war makes 
an attack upon them more respectable. The force of the 
satire depends ultimately upon the vigour with which Swift 
has described the real passions of human beings, big or lit- 
tle. He really means to express a bitter contempt for states- 
men and warriors, and seduces us to his side, for the mo- 
ment, by asking us to look at a diminutive representation 
of the same beings. The quarrels which depend upon the 
difference between the high-boots and the low-heeled shoes, 
or upon breaking eggs at the big or little end ; the party 
intrigues which are settled by cutting capers on the tight- 
rope, are meant, of course, in ridicule of political and re- 



176 SWIFT. [chap. 

ligious parties; and its force depends upon our previous 
conviction that the party-quarrels between our fellows are, 
in fact, equally contemptible. Swift's satire is congenial 
to the mental attitude of all who have persuaded them- 
selves that men are, in fact, a set of contemptible fools and 
knaves, in whose quarrels and mutual slaughterings the wise 
and good could not persuade themselves to take a serious 
interest. He " proves" nothing, mathematically or other- 
wise. If you do not share his sentiments there is nothing 
in the mere alteration of the scale to convince you that 
they are right ; you may say, with Hazlitt, that heroism 
is as admirable in a Lilliputian as in a Brobdingnagian, 
and believe that war calls forth patriotism, and often ad- 
vances civilization. "What Swift has really done is to pro- 
vide for the man who despises his species a number of 
exceedingly effective symbols for the utterance of his 
contempt. A child is simply amused with Bigendians 
and Littleendians ; a philosopher thinks that the questions 
really at the bottom of Church quarrels are in reality of 
more serious import; but the cynic who has learnt to 
disbelieve in the nobility or wisdom of the great mass of 
his species finds a most convenient metaphor for express- 
ing his disbelief. In this way Gulliver's Travels contains 
a whole gallery of caricatures thoroughly congenial to the 
despisers of humanity. 

In Brobdingnag Swift is generally said to be looking, 
as Scott expresses it, through the other end of the tele- 
scope. He wishes to show the grossness of men's passions, 
as before he has shown their pettiness. Some of the in- 
cidents are devised in this sense ; but we may notice that 
in Brobdingnag he recurs to the Lilliput view. He gives 
such an application to his fable as may be convenient, 
without bothering himself as to logical consistency. He 



viil] "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS." 177 

points out, indeed, the disgusting appearances which would 
be presented by a magnified human body; but the King 
of Brobdingnag looks down upon Gulliver, just as Gulliver 
looked down upon the Lilliputians. The monarch sums 
up his view emphatically enough by saying, after listening 
to Gulliver's version of modern history, that " the bulk of 
your natives appear to me to be the most pernicious race 
of little odious vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl 
upon the face of the earth." In Lilliput and Brobding- 
nag, however, the satire scarcely goes beyond pardonable 
limits. The details are often simply amusing, such as 
Gulliver's fear, when he gets home, of trampling upon the 
pygmies whom he sees around him. And even the severest 
satire may be taken without offence by every one who 
believes that petty motives, folly and selfishness, play a 
large enough part in human life to justify some indignant 
exaggerations. It is in the later parts that the ferocity 
of the man utters itself more fully. The ridicule of the 
inventors in the third book is, as Arbuthnot said at once, 
the least successful part of the w 7 hole ; not only because 
Swift was getting beyond his knowledge, and beyond the 
range of his strongest antipathies, but also because there is 
no longer the ingenious plausibility of the earlier books. 
The voyage to the Houyhnhnms, which forms the best 
part, is more powerful, but more painful and repulsive. 

A w r ord must here be said of the most unpleasant part 
of Swift's character. A morbid interest in the physically 
disgusting is shown in several of his writings. Some minor 
pieces, which ought to have been burnt, simply make the 
gorge rise. Mrs. Pilkington tells us, and we can for once 
believe her, that one "poem" actually made her mother 
sick. It is idle to excuse this on the ground of contem- 
porary freedom of speech. His contemporaries were 



178 SWIFT. [chap. 

heartily disgusted. Indeed, though it is true that they 
revealed certain propensities more openly, I see no reason 
to think that such propensities were really stronger in them 
than in their descendants. The objection to Swift is not 
that he spoke plainly, but that he brooded over filth un- 
necessarily. No parallel can be found for his tendency 
even in writers, for example, like Smollett and Fielding, 
who can be coarse enough when they please, but whose 
freedom of speech reveals none of Swift's morbid tendency. 
His indulgence in revolting images is to some extent an 
indication of a diseased condition of his mind, perhaps of 
actual mental decay. Delany says that it grew upon him 
in his later years, and, very gratuitously, attributes it to 
Pope's influence. The peculiarity is the more remarkable, 
because Swift was a man of the most scrupulous personal 
cleanliness. He was always enforcing this virtue with 
special emphasis. He was rigorously observant of decency 
in ordinary conversation. Delany once saw him " fall 
into a furious resentment" with Stella for "a very small 
failure of delicacy." So far from being habitually coarse, 
he pushed fastidiousness to the verge of prudery. It is 
one of the superficial paradoxes of Swift's character that 
this very shrinking from filth became perverted into an 
apparently opposite tendency. In truth, his intense re- 
pugnance to certain images led him to use them as the 
only adequate expression of his savage contempt. Instances 
might be given in some early satires, and in the attack 
upon Dissenters in the Tale of a Tub. His intensity of 
loathing leads him to besmear his antagonists with filth. 
He becomes disgusting in the effort to express his disgust. 
As his misanthropy deepened he applied the same method 
to mankind at large. He tears aside the veil of decency 
to show the bestial elements of human nature ; and his 



viil] "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS." 179 

characteristic irony makes him preserve an apparent calm- 
ness during the revolting exhibition. His state of mind 
is strictly analogous to that of some religious ascetics, who 
stimulate their contempt for the flesh by fixing their gaze 
upon decaying bodies. They seek to check the love of 
beauty by showing us beauty in the grave. The cynic in 
Mr. Tennyson's poem tells us that every face, however 

full— 

11 Padded round with flesh and blood, 
Is but moulded on a skulL" 

Swift — a practised self-tormentor, though not in the 
ordinary ascetic sense — mortifies any disposition to admire 
his fellows by dwelling upon the physical necessities which 
seem to lower and degrade human pride. Beauty is but 
skin deep ; beneath it is a vile carcase. He always sees 
the "flayed woman" of the Tale of a Tub. The thought 
is hideous, hateful, horrible, and therefore it fascinates 
him. He loves to dwell upon the hateful, because it jus- 
tifies his hate. He nurses his misanthropy, as he might 
tear his flesh to keep his mortality before his eyes. 

The Yahoo is the embodiment of the bestial element 
in man; and Swift in his wrath takes the bestial for 
the predominating element. The hideous, filthy, lustful 
monster yet asserts its relationship to him in the most 
humiliating fashion : and he traces in its conduct the 
resemblance to all the main activities of the human being. 
Like the human being, it fights and squabbles for the 
satisfaction of its lust, or to gain certain shiny yellow 
stones; it befouls the weak and fawns upon the strong 
with loathsome compliance ; shows a strange love of dirt, 
and incurs diseases by laziness and gluttony. Gulliver 
gives an account of his own breed of Yahoos, from 
which it seems that they differ from the subjects of the 



ISO SWIFT. [chap. 

Ilouyhnhnms only by showing the same propensities on 
a larger scale ; and justifies his master's remark, that all 
their institutions are owing to "gross defects in reason, 
and by consequence in virtue." The Houyhnhnms, mean- 
while, represent Swift's Utopia: they prosper and are 
happy, truthful, and virtuous, and therefore able to dis- 
pense with lawyers, physicians, ministers and all the other 
apparatus of an effete civilization. It is in this doctrine, 
as I may observe in passing, that Swift falls in with God- 
win and tile revolutionists, though they believed in human 
perfectibility, while they traced every existing evil to the 
impostures and corruptions essential to all systems of gov- 
ernment. Swift's view of human nature is too black to 
admit of any hopes of their millennium. 

The full wrath of Swift against his species shows itself 
in this ghastly caricature. It is lamentable and painful, 
though even here w T e recognize the morbid perversion of 
a noble wrath against oppression. One other portrait in 
Swift's gallery demands a moment's notice. No poetic 
picture in Dante or Milton can exceed the strange power 
of his prose description of the Struldbrugs — those hideous 
immortals who are damned to an everlasting life of driv- 
elling incompetence. It is a translation of the affecting 
myth of Tithonus into the repulsive details of downright 
prose. It is idle to seek for any particular moral from 
these hideous phantoms of Swift's dismal Inferno, They 
embody the terror which was haunting his imagination as 
old age was drawing upon him. The sight, he says him- 
self, should reconcile a man to death. The mode of recon- 
ciliation is terribly characteristic. Life is but a weary 
business at best; but, at least, we cannot wish to drain so 
repulsive a cup to the dregs, when even the illusions which 
cheered us at moments have been ruthlessly destroyed. 



vin.] "GULLIVER'S TRAVELS." 181 

Swift was but too clearly prophesying the melancholy de- 
cay into which he was himself to sink. 

The later books of Gulliver have been in some sense 
excised from the popular editions of the Travels. The 
Yahoos, and Houyhnhnms, and Struldbrugs are, indeed, 
known by name almost as w T ell as the inhabitants of Lilli- 
put and Brobdingnag ; but this part of the book is cer- 
tainly not reading for babes. It was, probably, written 
during the years when he was attacking public corruption, 
and when his private happiness was being destroyed — when, 
therefore, his wrath against mankind and against his own 
fate was stimulated to the highest pitch. Eeaders who 
wish to indulge in a harmless play of fancy will do well 
to omit the last two voyages, for the strain of misan- 
thropy which breathes in them is simply oppressive. 
They are, probably, the sources from which the popular 
impression of Swift's character is often derived. It is 
important, therefore, to remember that they were wrung 
from him in later years, after a life tormented by constant 
disappointment and disease. Most people hate the mis- 
anthropist, even if they are forced to admire his power. 
Yet we must not be carried too far by the w T ords. Swift's 
misanthropy was not all ignoble. We generally prefer 
flattery even to sympathy. We like the man who is blind 
to our faults better than the man who sees them and yet 
pities our distresses. We have the same kind of feeling 
for the race as we have rn our own case. We are attract- 
ed by the kindly optimist who assures us that good pre- 
dominates in everything and everybody, and believes that 
a speedy advent of the millennium must reward our mani- 
fold excellence. We cannot forgive those who hold men 
to be " mostly fools," or, as Swift would assert, mere 
brutes in disguise, and even carry out that disagreeable 



182 SWIFT. [chap. nn. 

opinion in detail. There is something uncomfortable, and 
therefore repellent of sympathy, in the mood which dwells 
upon the darker side of society, even though •with wrath- 
ful indignation against the irremovable evils. Swift's 
hatred of oppression, burning and genuine as it was, is no 
apology with most readers for his perseverance in assert- 
ing its existence. " Speak comfortable things to us" is 
the cry of men to the prophet in all ages ; and he who 
would assault abuses must count upon offending many 
who do not approve them, but who would, therefore, prefer 
not to believe in them. Swift, too, mixed an amount of 
egoism with his virtuous indignation which clearly lowers 
his moral dignity. He really hates wrongs to his race; 
but his sensitiveness is roused when they are injuries to 
himself, and committed by his enemies. The indomitable 
spirit which made him incapable even of yielding to neces- 
sity, which makes him beat incessantly against the bars 
which it was hopeless to break, and therefore waste pow- 
ers which might have done good service by aiming at the 
unattainable, and nursing grudges against inexorable ne- 
cessity, limits our sympathy with his better nature. Yet 
some of us may take a different view, and rather pity 
than condemn the wounded spirit so tortured and pervert- 
ed, in consideration of the real philanthropy which under- 
lies the misanthropy, and the righteous hatred of brutality 
and oppression which is but the seamy side of a generous 
sympathy. At least, we should be rather awed than re- 
pelled by this spectacle of a nature of magnificent power 
struck down, bruised and crushed under fortune, and yet 
fronting all antagonists with increasing pride, and com- 
forting itself with scorn even when it can no longer injure 
its adversaries. 



CHAPTER IX. 



DECLINE. 



Swift survived his final settlement in Ireland for more 
than thirty years, though daring the last five or six it was 
but the outside shell of him that lived. During every 
day in all those years Swift must have eaten and drunk, 
and somehow or other got through the twenty-four hours. 
The war against Wood's halfpence employed at most a 
few months in 1724, and all his other political writings 
would scarcely fill a volume of this size. A modern jour- 
nalist who could prove that he had written as little in six 
months would deserve a testimonial. Gulliver's Travels 
appeared in 1727, and ten years were to pass before his 
intellect became hopelessly clouded. How was the re- 
mainder of his time filled ? 

The death of Stella marks a critical point. Swift told 
Gay in 1723 that it had taken three years to reconcile 
him to the country to which he was condemned forever. 
He came back "with an ill head and an aching heart." 1 
He w T as separated from the friends he had loved, and too 
old to make new friends. A man, as he says elsewhere, 2 
who had been bred in a coal-pit might pass his time in it 
well enough ; but if sent back to it after a few months in 
upper air he would find content less easy. Swift, in fact, 

1 To Bolingbroke, May, 1719. 

2 To Pope and Gay, October 15, 1726. 
9 



184 SWIFT. [chap. 

never became resigned to the " coal-pit," or, to use another 
of his phrases, the " wretched, dirty dog-hole and prison," 
of which he could only say that it was a " place good 
enough to die in." Yet he became so far acclimatized as 
to shape a tolerable existence out of the fragments left to 
him. Intelligent and cultivated men in Dublin, especially 
amongst the clergy and the Fellows of Trinity College, 
gathered round their famous countryman. Swift formed 
a little court ; he rubbed up his classics to the academical 
standard, read a good deal of history, and even amused 
himself with mathematics. He received on Sundays at 
the deanery, though his entertainments seem to have been 
rather too economical for the taste of his guests. "The 
ladies," Stella and Mrs. Dingley, w r ere recognized as more 
or less domesticated with him. Stella helped to receive 
his guests, though not ostensibly as mistress of the house- 
hold ; and, if w ? e may accept Swift's estimate of her social 
talents, must have been a very charming hostess. If some 
of Swift's guests were ill at ease in presence of the imperi- 
ous and moody exile, we may believe that during Stella's 
life there was more than a mere semblance of agreeable 
society at the deanery. Her death, as Delany tells us, 1 led 
to a painful change. Swift's temper became sour and un- 
governable ; his avarice grew into a monomania ; at times 
he grudged even a single bottle of wine to his friends. 
The giddiness and deafness which had tormented him by 
fits now became a part of his life. Eeading came to be 
impossible, because (as Delany thinks) his obstinate refusal 
to wear spectacles had injured his sight. He still strug- 
gled hard against disease ; he rode energetically, though 
two servants had to accompany him, in case of accidents 
from giddiness ; he took regular " constitutionals" up and 
1 Delany, p. 144. 



ix.J DECLINE. 185 

down stairs when he could not go out. His friends thought 
that he injured himself by over-exercise, and the battle 
was necessarily a losing one. Gradually the gloom deep- 
ened ; friends dropped off by death, and w ? ere alienated by 
his moody temper ; he was surrounded, as they thought, 
by designing sycophants. His cousin, Mrs. White way, who 
took care of him in his last years, seems to have been both 
kindly and sensible ; but he became unconscious of kind- 
ness, and in 1741 had to be put under restraint. "We may 
briefly fill up some details in the picture. 

Swift at Dublin recalls Napoleon at Elba. The duties 
of a deanery are not supposed, I believe, to give absorbing 
employment for all the faculties of the incumbent ; but an 
empire, however small, may be governed ; and Swift at an 
early period set about establishing his supremacy within 
his small domains. He maintained his prerogatives against 
the archbishop, and subdued his chapter. His inferiors 
submitted, and could not fail to recognize his zeal for the 
honour of the body. But his superiors found him less 
amenable. He encountered episcopal authority with his 
old haughtiness. He bade an encroaching bishop remem- 
ber that he w r as speaking " to a clergyman, and not to a 
footman." 1 He fell upon an old friend, Sterne, the Bish- 
op of Clogher, for granting a lease to some " old fanatic 
knight." He takes the opportunity of reviling the bish- 
ops for favouring " two abominable bills for beggaring and 
enslaving the clergy (which took their birth from hell)," 
and says that he had thereupon resolved to have " no more 
commerce with persons of such prodigious grandeur, who, 
I feared, in a little time, w T ould expect me to kiss their 
slipper." 2 He would not even look into a coach, lest he 

1 Bishop of Meath, May 22, 1719. 
8 To Bishop of Clogher, July, 1*733. 



186 SWIFT. [chap. 

should see such a thing as a bishop — a sight that would 
strike him with terror. In a bitter satire he describes Sa- 
tan as the bishop to whom the rest of the Irish Bench are 
suffragans. His theory was that the English Government 
always appointed admirable divines, but that unluckily all 
the new bishops were murdered on Hounslow Heath by 
highwaymen, who took their robes and patents, and so 
usurped the Irish sees. It is not surprising that Swift's 
episcopal acquaintance was limited. 

In his deanery Swift discharged his duties with despotic 
benevolence. He performed the services, carefully criti- 
cised young preachers, got his musical friends to help him 
in regulating his choir, looked carefully after the cathedral 
repairs, and improved the revenues at the cost of his own 
interests. His pugnacity broke out repeatedly even in 
such apparently safe directions. He erected a monument 
to the Duke of Schomberg after an attempt to make the 
duke's descendants pay for it themselves. He said that if 
they tried to avoid the duty by reclaiming the body, he 
would take up the bones, and put the skeleton "in his 
register office, to be a memorial of their baseness to all 
posterity." 1 He finally relieved his feelings by an epitaph, 
which is a bitter taunt against the duke's relations. 

Happily, he gave less equivocal proofs of the energy 
which he could put into his duties. His charity was un- 
surpassed both for amount and judicious distribution. 
Dclany declares that in spite of his avarice he would give 
five pounds more easily than richer men would give as 
many shillings. " I never," says this good authority, " saw 
poor so carefully and conscientiously attended to in my 
life as those of his cathedral." He introduced and carried 
out within his own domains a plan for distinguishing the 
1 To Carteret, May 10, 1728. 



ix.J DECLINE. 187 

deserving poor by badges — in anticipation of modern 
schemes for "organization of charity." With the first 
five hundred pounds which he possessed he formed a fund 
for granting loans to industrious tradesmen and citizens, 
to be repaid by weekly instalments. It was said that by 
this scheme he had been the means of putting more than 
two hundred families in a comfortable w r ay of living. 1 He 
had, says Del any, a whole " seraglio " of distressed old 
women in Dublin ; there was scarcely a lane in the whole 
city where he had not such a " mistress." He saluted 
them kindly, inquired into their affairs, bought trifles from 
them, and gave them such titles as Pullagowna, Stumpa- 
nympha, and so forth. The phrase " seraglio " may re- 
mind us of Johnson's establishment, who has shown his 
prejudice against Swift in nothing more than in misjudg- 
ing a charity akin to his own, though apparently directed 
with more discretion. The " rabble," it is clear, might be 
grateful for other than political services. To personal de- 
pendents he was equally liberal. He supported his wid- 
owed sister, wdio had married a scapegrace in opposition 
to his wishes. He allowed an annuity of 521. a year to 
Stella's companion, Mrs. Dingley, and made her suppose 
that the money was not a gift, but the produce of a fund 
for which he was trustee. He showed the same liberality 
to Mrs. Ridgway, daughter of his old housekeeper, Mrs. 
Brent, paying her an annuity of 20/., and giving her a 
bond to secure the payment in case of accidents. Consid- 
ering the narrowness of Swift's income, and that he seems 
also to have had considerable trouble about obtaining his 
rents and securing his invested savings, we may say that 
his so-called " avarice " was not inconsistent with unusual 

1 Substance of a speech to the Major of Dublin. Franklin left 
a sum of money to be employed in a similar way. 



188 SWIFT. [chap. 

munificence. He pared his personal expenditure to the 
quick, not that he might be rich, but that he might be 
liberal. 

Though for one reason or other Swift was at open war 
with a good many of the higher classes, his court was 
not without distinguished favourites. The most conspic- 
uous amongst them were Delany and Sheridan. Delany 
(1685-1768), when Swift first knew him, was a Fellow of 
Trinity College. He was a scholar, and a man of much 
good feeling and intelligence, and eminently agreeable in 
society ; his theological treatises seem to have been fan- 
ciful, but he could write pleasant verses, and had great 
reputation as a college tutor. He married two rich wives, 
and Swift testifies that his good qualities were not the 
w 7 orse for his wealth, nor his purse generally fuller. He 
was so much given to hospitality as to be always rather 
in difficulties. He was a man of too much amiability and 
social suavity not to be a little shocked at some of Swift's 
savage outbursts, and scandalized by his occasional impro- 
prieties. Yet he appreciated the nobler qualities of the 
staunch, if rather alarming, friend. It is curious to 
remember that his second wife, who was one of Swift's 
later correspondents, survived to be the venerated friend 
of Fanny Burney (1752-1840), and that many living 
people may thus remember one who was familiar with 
the latest of Swift's female favourites. Swift's closest 
friend and crony, however, was the elder Sheridan, the 
ancestor of a race fertile in genius, though unluckily his 
son, Swift's biographer, seems to have transmitted without 
possessing any share of it. Thomas Sheridan, the elder, 
was the typical Irishman — kindly, witty, blundering, full 
of talents and imprudences, careless of dignity, and a child 
in the ways of the world. He was a prosperous school- 



ix.] DECLINE. 189 

master in Dublin when Swift first made his acquaintance 
(about 1/18), so prosperous as to decline a less precarious 
post, of which Swift got him the offer. 

After the war of "Wood's halfpence Swift became 
friendly w T ith Carteret, whom he respected as a man of 
genuine ability, and who had besides the virtue of being 
thoroughly distrusted by Walpole. When Carteret was 
asked how he had succeeded in Ireland he replied that 
he had pleased Dr. Swift. Swift took advantage of the 
mutual good-will to recommend several promising clergy- 
men to Carteret's notice. He was specially warm in be- 
half of Sheridan, who received the first vacant living and 
a chaplaincy. Sheridan characteristically spoilt his own 
chances by preaching a sermon, upon the day of the 
accession of the Hanoverian family, from the text, " Suf- 
ficient unto the day is the evil thereof." The sermon was 
not political, and the selection of the text a pure accident; 
but Sheridan was accused of Jacobitism, and lost his chap- 
laincy in consequence. Though generously compensated 
by the friend in whose pulpit he had committed this 
" Sheridanism," he got into difficulties. His school fell 
off; he exchanged his preferments for others less prefer- 
able; he failed in a school at Cavan, and ultimately the 
poor man came back to die at Dublin, in 1738, in dis- 
tressed circumstances. Swift's relations with him were 
thoroughly characteristic. He defended his cause ener- 
getically ; gave him most admirably good advice in rather 
dictatorial terms ; admitted him to the closest familiarity, 
and sometimes lost his temper when Sheridan took a lib- 
erty at the wrong moment, or resented the liberties taken 
by himself. A queer character of the " Second Solomon," 
written, it seems, in 1729, shows the severity with which 
Swift could sometimes judge his shiftless and impulsive 



190 SWIFT. [chap. 

friend, and the irritability with which he could resent 
occasional assertions of independence. "He is extremely 
proud and captious," says Swift, and " apt to resent as an 
affront or indignity what was never intended for either," 
but what, w T e must add, had a strong likeness to both. 
One cause of poor Sheridan's troubles w T as doubtless that 
assigned by Swift. Mrs. Sheridan, says this frank critic, 
is " the most disagreeable beast in Europe," a " most filthy 
slut, lazy and slothful, luxurious, ill-natured, envious, sus- 
picious," and yet managing to govern Sheridan. This es- 
timate was apparently shared by her husband, who makes 
various references to her detestation of Swift. In spite 
of all jars, Swift was not only intimate with Sheridan and 
energetic in helping him, but to all appearance really loved 
him. Swift came to Sheridan's house when the workmen 
were moving the furniture, preparatory to his departure 
for Cavan. Swift burst into tears, and hid himself in a 
dark closet before he could regain his self-possession. He 
paid a visit to his old friend afterwards, but was now in 
that painful and morbid state in which violent outbreaks 
of passion made him frequently intolerable. Poor Sheri- 
dan rashly ventured to fulfil an old engagement that he 
would tell Swift frankly of a growing infirmity, and said 
something about avarice. " Doctor," replied Swift, signif- 
icantly, " did you never read Gil Bias?'' When Sheridan 
soon afterwards sold his school to return to Dublin, Swift 
received his old friend so inhospitably that Sheridan left 
him, never again to enter the house. Swift, indeed, had 
ceased to be Swift, and Sheridan died soon afterwards. 

Swift often sought relief from the dreariness of the 
deanery by retiring to, or rather by taking possession of, 
his friends' country houses. In 1725 he stayed for some 
months, together with "the ladies," at Quilca, a small 



ix.] DECLINE. 191 

country Louse of Sheridan's, and compiled an account of 
the deficiencies of the establishment — meant to be con- 
tinued weekly. Broken tables, doors without locks, a 
chimney stuffed with the Dean's great-coat, a solitary pair 
of tongs forced to attend all the fireplaces and also to take 
the meat from the pot, holes in the floor, spikes protrud- 
ing from the bedsteads, are some of the items ; whilst the 
servants are all thieves, and act upon the proverb, "The 
worse their sty, the longer they lie." Swift amused him- 
self here and elsewhere by indulging his taste in landscape 
gardening, without the consent and often to the annoy- 
ance of the proprietor. In 1728 — the year of Stella's 
death — he passed eight months at Sir Arthur Acheson's, 
near Market Hill. He was sickly, languid, and anxious to 
escape from Dublin, where he had no company but that of 
his "old Presbyterian housekeeper, Mrs. Brent." He had, 
however, energy enough to take the household in hand 
after his usual fashion. He superintended Lady Acheson's 
studies, made her read to him, gave her plenty of good 
advice; bullied the butler; looked after the dairy and the 
garden, and annoyed Sir Arthur by summarily cutting 
down an old thorn-tree. He liked the place so much that 
he thought of building a house there, which was to be 
called Drapier's Hall, but abandoned the project for 
reasons which, after his fashion, he expressed with great 
frankness in a poem. Probably the chief reason was the 
very obvious one which strikes all people who are tempted 
to build; but that upon which he chiefly dwells is Sir 
Arthur's defects as an entertainer. The knight used, it 
seems, to lose himself in metaphysical moonings when he 
should have been talking to Swift and attending to his 
gardens and farms. Swift entered a house less as a guest 
than a conqueror. His dominion, it is clear, must have 
9* 



192 SWIFT. [chap. 

become burdensome in his later years, when his temper 
was becoming savage and his fancies more imperious. 

Such a man was the natural prey of sycophants, who 
would bear his humours for interested motives. Amongst 
Swift's numerous clients some doubtless belonged to this 
class. The old need of patronizing and protecting still 
displays itself; and there is something very touching in 
the zeal for his friends which survived breaking health and 
mental decay. His correspondence is full of eager advo- 
cacy. Poor Miss Kelly, neglected by an unnatural parent, 
comes to Swift as her natural adviser. He intercedes on 
behalf of the prodigal son of a Mr. FitzHerbert in a letter 
which is a model of judicious and delicate advocacy. His 
old friend, Barber, had prospered in business ; he was Lord 
Mayor of London in 1733, and looked upon Swift as the 
founder of his fortunes. To him, "rny dear good old 
friend in the best and worst times," Swift w r rites a series 
of letters, full of pathetic utterances of his regrets for old 
friends amidst increasing infirmities, and full also of ap- 
peals on behalf of others. He induced Barber to give a 
chaplaincy to Pilkington, a young clergyman of whose 
talent and modesty Swift w 7 as thoroughly convinced. Mrs. 
Pilkington was a small poetess, and the pair had crept 
into some intimacy at the deanery. Unluckily, Swift had 
reasons to repent his patronage. The pair were equally 
worthless. The husband tried to get a divorce, and the 
wife sank into misery. One of her last experiments w r as 
to publish by subscription certain " Memoirs," which con- 
tain some interesting but untrustworthy anecdotes of 
Swift's later years. 1 He had rather better luck with Mrs. 
Barber, wife of a Dublin woollen-draper, who, as Swift says, 

1 See also the curious letters from Mrs. Pilkington in Richardson's 
correspondence. 



ix.] DECLINE. 193 

was "poetically given, and, for a woman, had a sort of 
genius that way." He pressed her claims not only upon 
her namesake, the Mayor, but upon Lord Carteret, Lady 
Betty Germaine, and Gay and his Duchess. A forged 
letter to Queen Caroline in Swift's name on behalf of this 
poetess naturally raised some suspicions. Swift, however, 
must have been convinced of her innocence. He con- 
tinued his interest in her for years, during which we are 
glad to find that she gave up poetry for selling Irish linens 
and letting lodgings at Bath ; and one of Swift's last acts 
before his decay was to present her, at her own request, 
with the copyright of his Polite Conversations. Every- 
body, she said, w r ould subscribe for a work of Swift's, and 
it would put her in easy circumstances. Mrs. Barber 
clearly had no delicacy in turning Swift's liberality to 
account; but she was a respectable and sensible woman, 
and managed to bring up two sons to professions. Liber- 
ality of this kind came naturally to Swift. He provided 
for a broken-down old officer, Captain Creichton, by com- 
piling his memoirs for him, to be published by subscrip- 
tion. "I never," he says in 1735, "got a farthing by 
anything I wrote — except once by Pope's prudent man- 
agement." This probably refers to Gulliver, for which he 
seems to have received 200/. He apparently gave his 
share in the profits of the Miscellanies to the widow of a 
Dublin printer. 

A few w r ords may now be said about these last writ- 
ings. In reading some of them we must remember his 
later mode of life. He generally dined alone, or with old 
Mrs. Brent, then sat alone in his closet till he went to bed 
at eleven. The best company in Dublin, he said, was 
barely tolerable, and those who had been tolerable were 
now insupportable. He could no longer read by candle- 



194 SWIFT. ' [ciiap. 

light, and his only resource was to write rubbish, most of 
which he burnt. The merest trifles that he ever wrote, 
he says in 1731, "are serious philosophical lucubrations 
in comparison to what I now busy myself about.' 7 This, 
however, was but the development of a lifelong practice. 
His favourite maxim, Vive la bagatelle, is often quoted by 
Pope and Bolingbroke. As he had punned in his youth 
with Lord Berkeley, so he amused himself in later years 
by a constant interchange of trifles with his friends, and 
above all with Sheridan. Many of these trifles have been 
preserved; they range from really good specimens of 
Swift's rather sardonic humour down to bad riddles and 
a peculiar hind of playing upon words. A brief specimen 
of one variety will be amply sufficient. Sheridan writes 
to Swift : " Times a re veri de ad nota do it or as hi lingat 
almi e state" The words separately are Latin, and are to 
be read into the English — " Times are very dead; not a 
doit or a shilling at all my estate." Swift writes to 
Sheridan in English, which reads into Latin, " Am I say 
vain a rabble is," means, Amice venerabilis — and so forth. 
Whole manuscript books are still in existence filled with 
jargon of this kind. Charles Fox declared that Swift 
must be a good-natured man to have had such a love of 
nonsense. We may admit some of it to be a proof of 
good-humour in the same sense as a love of the back- 
gammon in which he sometimes indulged. It shows, that 
is, a willingness to kill time in company. But it must be 
admitted that the impression becomes different when we 
think of Swift in his solitude wasting the most vigorous 
intellect in the country upon ingenuities beneath that of 
the composer of double acrostics. Delany declares that 
the habit helped to weaken his intellect. Kathcr it 
showed that his intellect was preying upon itself. Once 



ix.] DECLINE. 195 

more we have to think of the "conjured spirit" and the 
ropes of sand. Nothing can well be more lamentable. 
Books full of this stuff impress us like products of the 
painful ingenuity by which some prisoner for life has 
tried to relieve himself of the intolerable burden of soli- 
tary confinement. Swift seems to betray the secret when 
he tells Bolingbroke that at his age " I often thought of 
death ; but now it is never out of my mind." lie repeats 
this more than once. He does not fear death, he says; 
indeed, he longed for it. His regular farewell to a friend 
w T as, " Good-night; I hope I shall never see you again." 
He had long been in the habit of " lamenting " his birth- 
day, though, in earlier days, Stella and other friends had 
celebrated the anniversary. Now it became a day of un- 
mixed gloom, and the chapter in which Job curses the 
hour of his birth lay open all day on his table. "And 
yet," he says, " I love la bagatelle better than ever." 
Rather we should say, "and therefore," for in truth the 
only excuse for such trifling was the impossibility of find- 
ing any other escape from settled gloom. Friends, indeed, 
seem to have adopted at times the theory that a humour- 
ist must always be on the broad grin. They called him 
the " laughter-loving" Dean, and thought Gulliver a " mer- 
ry book." A strange effect is produced when, between 
two of the letters in which Swift utters the bitterest ag- 
onies of his soul during Stella's illness, we have a letter 
from Bolingbroke to the " three Yahoos of Twickenham " 
(Pope, Gay, and Swift), referring to Swift's "divine sci- 
ence, la bagatelle" and ending with the benediction, 
" Mirth be with you !" From such mirth we can only 
say, may Heaven protect us, for it would remind us of 
nothing but the mirth of Redgauntlet's companions when 
they sat dead (and damned) at their ghastly revelry, and 



196 SWIFT. [chap. 

their laughter passed into such wild sounds as made the 
daring piper's " very nails turn blue." 

It is not, however, to be inferred that all Swift's recrea- 
tions were so dreary as this Anglo-Latin, or that his face- 
tiousness always covered an aching heart. There is real 
humour, and not all of bitter flavour, in some of the trifles 
which passed between Swift and his friends. The most 
famous is the poem called The Grand Question Debated, 
the question being whether an old building called Hamil- 
ton's Bawn, belonging to Sir A. Acheson, should be turned 
into a malthouse or a barrack. Swift takes the opportu- 
nity of caricaturing the special object of his aversion, the 
blustering and illiterate soldier, though he indignantly 
denies that he had said anything disagreeable to his hos- 
pitable entertainer. Lady Acheson encouraged him in 
writing such " lampoons." Her taste cannot have been 
very delicate, 1 and she, perhaps, did not perceive how a 
rudeness which affects to be only playful may be really 
offensive. If the poem shows that Swift took liberties 
w r ith his friends, it also shows that he still possessed the 
strange power of reproducing the strain of thought of a 
vulgar mind which he exhibited in Mr. Harris's petition. 
Two other works which appeared in these last years are 
more remarkable proofs of the same power. The Com- 
plete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation and 
the Directions to Servants are most singular perform- 
ances, and curiously illustrative of Swift's habits of 
thought and composition. He seems to have begun them 
during some of his early visits to England. He kept 
them by him and amused himself by working upon them, 
though they were never quite finished. The Polite Con- 
versation was given, as we have seen, to Mrs. Barber in his 
1 Or she would hardly have written the Panegyric. 



ix.] DECLINE. 197 

later years, and the Directions to Servants came into the 
printer's hands when he was already imbecile. They 
show how closely Swift's sarcastic attention was fixed 
through life upon the ways of his inferiors. They are a 
mass of materials for a natural history of social absurdi- 
ties, such as Mr. Darwin was in the habit of bestowing 
upon the manners and customs of worms. The difference 
is that Darwin had' none but kindly feelings for worms, 
whereas Swift's inspection of social vermin is always 
edged with contempt. The Conversations are a marvel- 
lous collection of the set of cant phrases which at best 
have supplied the absence of thought in society. Inci- 
dentally there are some curious illustrations of the cus- 
toms of the day ; though one cannot suppose that any 
human beings had ever the marvellous flow of pointless 
proverbs with which Lord Sparkish, Mr. Neverout, Miss 
Notable, and the rest manage to keep the ball incessantly 
rolling. The talk is nonsensical, as most small-talk would 
be, if taken down by a reporter, and, according to modern 
standard, hideously vulgar, and yet it flows on with such 
vivacity that it is perversely amusing : 

" Lady Answerall. But, Mr. Neverout, I wonder why such a hand- 
some, straight young gentleman as you don't get some rich widow ? 

" Lord Sparkish. Straight ! Ay, straight as my leg, and that's 
crooked at the knee. 

" Neverout. Truth, madam, if it had rained rich widows, none 
would fall upon me. Egad, I was born under a threepenny planet, 
never to be worth a groat." 

And so the talk flows on, and to all appearance might 
flow forever. 

Swift professes in his preface to have sat many hundred 
times, with his table-book ready, without catching a single 
phrase for his book in eight hours. Truly he is a kind of 



198 SWIFT. [chap. 

Boswell of inanities, and one is amazed at the quantity of 
thought which must have gone into this elaborate trifling 
upon trifles. A similar vein of satire upon the emptiness 
of writers is given in his Tritical Essay upon the Faculties 
of the Human Mind; but that is a mere skit compared 
with this strange performance. The Directions to Servants 
shows an equal amount of thought exerted upon the va- 
rious misdoings of the class assailed. Some one has said 
that it is painful to read so minute and remorseless an 
exposure of one variety of human folly. Undoubtedly it 
suggests that Swift must have appeared to be an omni- 
scient master. Delany, as I have said, testifies to his 
excellence in that capacity. Many anecdotes attest the 
close attention which he bestowed upon every detail of 
his servants' lives, and the humorous reproofs which he 
administered. " Sweetheart," he said to an ugly cook- 
maid who had overdone a joint, " take this down to 
the kitchen and do it less." "That is impossible," she 
replied. " Then," he said, " if you must commit faults, 
commit faults that can be mended." Another story tells 
how, when a servant had excused himself for not cleaning 
boots on the ground that they would soon be dirty again, 
Swift made him apply the same principle to eating break- 
fast, which would be only a temporary remedy for hunger. 
In this, as in every relation of life, Swift was under a 
kind of necessity of imposing himself upon every one in 
contact with him, and followed out his commands into 
the minutest details. In the Directions to Servants he has 
accumulated the results of his experience in one depart- 
ment ; and the reading may not be without edification to 
the people who every now and then announce as a new 
discovery that servants are apt to be selfish, indolent, and 
slatternly, and to prefer their own interests to their mas- 



ix.] DECLIXE. 199 

ters\ Probably no fault could be found with the modern 
successors of eighteenth -century servants which has not 
already been exemplified in Swift's presentment of that 
golden age of domestic comfort. The details are not al- 
together pleasant ; but, admitting such satire to be legiti- 
mate, Swift's performance is a masterpiece. 

Swift, however, left work of a more dignified kind. 
Many of the letters in his correspondence are admirable 
specimens of a perishing art. The most interesting are 
those which passed between him, Pope, and Bolingbroke, 
and which w r ere published by Pope's contrivance during 
Swift's last period. "I look upon us three," says Swift, 
" as a peculiar triumvirate, who have nothing to expect or 
fear, and so far fittest to converse with one another." "We 
may, perhaps, believe Swift when he says that he " never 
leaned on his elbow to consider w T hat he should write" 
(except to fools, lawyers, and ministers), though we cer- 
tainly cannot say the same of his friends. Pope and 
Bolingbroke are full of affectations, now transparent 
enough ; but Swift in a few trenchant, outspoken phrases 
dashes out a portrait of himself as impressive as it is in 
some ways painful. We must, indeed, remember, in read- 
ing his inverse hypocrisy, his tendency to call his own mo- 
tives by their ugliest names — a tendency w T hich is specially 
pronounced in writing letters to the old friends whose very 
names recall the memories of past happiness, and lead him 
to dwell upon the gloomiest side of the present. There is, 
too, a characteristic reserve upon some points. In his last 
visit to Pope, Swift left his friend's house after hearing the 
bad accounts of Stella's health, and hid himself in London 
lodgings. He never mentioned his anxieties to his friend, 
w T ho heard of them first from Sheridan ; and in writing 
afterwards from Dublin, Swift excuses himself for the 



200 SWIFT. [chap. 

desertion by referring to his own ill-health — doubtless a 
true cause (" two sick friends never did well together ") 
— and his anxiety about his affairs, without a word about 
Stella. A phrase of Bolingbroke's in the previous year 
about " the present Stella, w T hoever she may be," seems 
to prove that he too had no knowledge of Stella except 
from the poems addressed to the name. Thero were 
depths of feeling which Swift could not lay bare to the 
friend in whose affection he seems most thoroughly to 
have trusted. Meanwhile he gives full vent to the scorn 
of mankind and himself, the bitter and unavailing hatred 
of oppression, and above all for that strange mingling of 
pride and remorse, which is always characteristic of his 
turn of mind. When he leaves Arbuthnot and Pope he 
expresses the warmth of his feelings by declaring that he 
will try to forget them. He is deeply grieved by the death 
of Congreve, and the grief makes him almost regret that he 
ever had a friend. He would give half his fortune for the 
temper of an easy-going acquaintance who could take up or 
lose a friend as easily as a cat. " Is not this the true happy 
man ?" The loss of Gay cuts him to the heart ; he notes on 
the letter announcing it that he had kept the letter by him 
five days " by an impulse foreboding some misfortune." He 
cannot speak of it except to say that he regrets that long 
living has not hardened him, and that he expects to die 
poor and friendless. Pope's ill -health "hangs on his 
spirits." His moral is that if he were to begin the world 
again he would never run the risk of a friendship with 
a poor or sickly man — for he cannot harden himself. 
" Therefore I argue that avarice and hardness of heart 
are the two happiest qualities a man can acquire who is 
late in his life, because by living long w^e must lessen our 
friends or mav increase our fortunes." This bitterness is 



ix.] DECLINE. 201 

equally apparent in regard to the virtues on which he 
most prided himself. His patriotism was owing to " per- 
fect rage and resentment, and the mortifying sight of 
slavery, folly, and baseness ;" in which, as he says, he is 
the direct contrary of Pope, who can despise folly and hate 
vice without losing his temper or thinking the worse of 
individuals. " Oppression tortures him," and means bit- 
ter hatred of the concrete oppressor. He tells Barber in 
1738 that for three years he has been but the shadow of 
his former self, and has entirely lost his memory, " except 
when it is roused by perpetual subjects of vexation." 
Commentators have been at pains to show that such sen- 
timents are not philanthropic ; yet they are the morbid 
utterance of a noble and affectionate nature soured by 
long misery and disappointment. They brought their 
own punishment. The unhappy man was fretting him- 
self into melancholy, and was losing all sources of conso- 
lation. " I have nobody now left but you," he writes to 
Pope in 1736. His invention is gone ; he makes projects 
which end in the manufacture of waste paper; and what 
vexes him most is that his " female friends have now for- 
saken him." " Years and infirmities," he says in the end 
of the same year (about the date of the Legion Club), 
"have quite broke me; I can neither read, nor write, nor 
remember, nor converse. All I have left is to walk and 
ride." A few letters are preserved in the next two years 
— melancholy wails over his loss of health and spirit — 
pathetic expressions of continual affection for his " dearest 
and almost only constant friend," and a warm request or 
two for services to some of his acquaintance. 

The last stage was rapidly approaching. Swift, who 
had always been thinking of death in these later years, 
had anticipated the end in the remarkable verses On the 



202 SWIFT. [chap. 

Death of Dr. Swift. This and two or three other per- 
formances of abont the same period, especially the 
Rhapsody on Poetry (1733) and the Verses to a Lady, 
are Swift's chief title to be called a poet. How far that 
name can be conceded to him is a question of classifica- 
tion. Swift's originality appears in. the very fact that 
he requires a new class to be made for him. He justified 
Dryden's remark in so far as he was never a poet in the 
sense in which Milton or Wordsworth or Shelley or even 
Dryden himself were poets. His poetry may be called 
rhymed prose, and should, perhaps, be put at about the 
same level in the scale of poetry as Hudibras. It differs 
from prose, not simply in being rhymed, but in that the 
metrical form seems to be the natural and appropriate 
mode of utterance. Some of the purely sarcastic and hu- 
morous phrases recall Hudibras more nearly than anything 
else ; as, for example, the often quoted verses upon small 
critics in the Rhapsody * 

" The vermin only tease and pinch 
Their foes superior by an inch. 
So naturalists observe a flea 
Has smaller fleas that on him prey, 
And these have smaller still to bite 'era, 
And so proceed ad infinitum" 

In the verses on his own death the suppressed passion, 
the glow 7 and force of feeling which w T e perceive behind 
the merely moral and prosaic phrases, seem to elevate the 
work to a higher level. It is a mere running of every-day 
language into easy-going verse; and yet the strangely min- 
gled pathos and bitterness, the peculiar irony of which he 
was the great master, affect us with a sentiment which 
may be called poetical in substance more forcibly than 



ix.] DECLINE. 203 

far more dignified and in some sense imaginative perform- 
ances. Whatever name we may please to give such work, 
Swift has certainly struck home, and makes an impression 
which it is difficult to compress into a few phrases. It is 
the essence of all that is given at greater length in the cor- 
respondence, and starts from a comment upon Eochefou- 
cauld's congenial maxim about the misfortunes of our 
friends. He tells how his acquaintance watch his decay, 
tacitly congratulating themselves that " it is not yet so bad 
with us ;" how, when he dies, they laugh at the absurdity 
of his will : 

" To public uses ! There's a whim ! 

What had the public done for him ? 

Mere envy, avarice, and pride, 

He gave it all — but first he died." 

Then we have the comments of Queen Caroline and Sir 
Robert, and the rejoicings of Grub Street at the chance of 
passing off rubbish by calling it his. His friends are 
really touched : 

"Poor Pope will grieve a month, and Gay 
A week, and Arbuthnot a day ; 
St. John himself will scarce forbear 
To bite his pen and drop a tear ; 
The rest will give a shrug and cry, 
4 'Tis pity, but we all must die !' " 

The ladies talk over it at their cards. They have learnt 
to show their tenderness, and 

" Receive the news in doleful dumps. 
The Dean is dead (pray what is trumps ?); 
Then Lord have mercy on his soul ! 
(Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.)" 

The poem concludes, as usual, with an impartial char- 



204 SWIFT. [ciiap. 

actor of the Dean. He claims, with a pride not unjustifia- 
ble, the power of independence, love of his friends, hatred 
of corruption, and so forth ; admits that he may have had 
" too much satire in his vein," though adding the very 
questionable assertion that he " lashed the vice but spared 
the name." Marlborough, "Wharton, Burnet, Steele, Wal- 
pole, and a good many more, might have had something 
to say upon that head. The last phrase is significant : 

" He gave the little wealth he had 
To build a house for fools and mad ; 
And showed by one satiric touch 
No nation needed it so much — 
That kingdom he hath left his debtor, 
I wish it soon may have a better !" 

For some years, in fact, Swift had spent much thought 
and time in arranging the details of this bequest. He ul- 
timately left about 12,000/., with which, and some other 
contributions, St. Patrick's Hospital was opened for fifty 
patients in the year 1757. 

The last few years of Swift's life were passed in an al- 
most total eclipse of intellect. One pathetic letter to Mrs. 
Whiteway gives almost the last touch : " I have been very 
miserable all night, and to-day extremely deaf and full of 
pain. I am so stupid and confounded that I cannot ex- 
press the mortification I am under both of body and mind. 
All I can say is that I am not in torture ; but I daily and 
hourly expect it. Pray let me know how your health is 
and your family. I hardly understand one word I write. 
I am sure my days will be very few, for miserable they 
must be. If I do not blunder, it is Saturday, July 26, 
1740. If I live till Monday, I shall hope to see you, per- 
haps for the last time." Even after this he occasionally 



ix.] DECLINE. 205 

showed gleams of bis former intelligence, and is said to 
have written a well-known epigram during an outing with 
his attendants : 

" Behold a proof of Irish sense ! 
Here Irish wit is seen ! 
, \Yhen nothing's left that's worth defence 
The} 7 build a magazine." 

Occasionally he gave way to furious outbursts of vio- 
lent temper, and once suffered great torture from a swell- 
ing in the eye. But his general state seems to have been 
apathetic ; sometimes he tried to speak, but was unable 
to find words. A few sentences have been recorded. On 
hearing that preparations were being made for celebrating 
his birthday he said, " It is all folly ; they had better let 
it alone." Another time he was heard to mutter, " I am 
what I am ; I am what I am." Few details have been 
given of this sad period of mental eclipse ; nor can wc 
regret their absence. It is enough to say that he suffered 
occasional tortures from the development of the brain-dis- 
ease ; though as a rule he enjoyed the painlessness of tor- 
por. The unhappy man lingered till the 19th of October, 
1745, when he died quietly at three in the afternoon, after 
a night of convulsions. lie was buried in St. Patrick's 
Cathedral, and over his grave was placed an epitaph, con- 
taining the last of those terrible phrases which cling to 
our memory whenever his name is mentioned. Swift lies, 
in his own words, 

" Ubi sasva indignatio 
Cor ulterius lacerare nequit." 

What more can be added? 

THE EXD. 



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